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farfromstrange · 1 year

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Foreigner's God | m.m

Matt Murdock x avenger!OFC

Chapter thirty-six: this is me trying

Read part XXXV here ° series masterlist ° main masterlist

Summary: Eliza and Matt are both trying to move on, but recovery is a lengthy process and they're both not quite there yet. Fortunately, they have each other and as he holds her hand, she's more than willing to hold his so they can both get out of the woods together.

Warnings: Slight angst with hurt/comfort, Fluff, domesticity, established relationship, SEMI-SMUT (male receiving oral) 18+ MINORS DNI, sub!Matt, degradation kink, use of pet names, praise kink, slight (?) cum play, Matt Murdock's never-ending masochism, religious imagery and symbolism, talks about child molestation, bullying, antidepressants, drug addiction, and depression — use of mutant powers to make Matthew see (momentarily)

Other Characters: Involuntary Therapist Paul Lantom™️

a/n: Here are the 10,000 words I removed from the last chapter and about 7,000 more. I just switched up the planned chapter titles.

POSTING THIS EARLIER THAN PLANNED BC I REACHED 200 FOLLOWERS!

And because my dear @mrs-areallygoodlawyer said I should add a certain joke into one of the chapters, I did. I’m sorry in advance, it’s cringe but I found it funny. No regrets on this one.

Eliza stirred. The faint sound of birds chirping in the distance and a cold yet gentle breeze on the already frozen tip of her nose paired with a cocoon of warmth wrapped around the rest of her body coaxed her out of the depths of unconsciousness. She wriggled some more to get her shoulder back under the blanket, thankfully succeeding, and she slowly blinked the sleep from her eyes.

She was disoriented when she woke up, though she soon recognized the stone walls of the bedroom and the silky green sheets she was tangled in. The room smelled of Matt’s deodorant and the salt of his skin. His shampoo filled her nose with the scent of happiness hiding behind sandalwood and bath water. Brown strands of hair tickled her face from where his head rested on her shoulder.

The air in the room grew colder with each gush of wind that brushed over their entangled bodies. The blanket barely covered Matt’s large frame - he wasn’t wearing a shirt - yet he didn’t even as much as shiver.

He grunted, tightening his arms around her torso. “Don’t you dare,” he said, voice laced thick with sleep, hoarse and scratching in the back of his throat. His vocal cords weren’t quite awake yet, and neither was his body. His fingers drew lazy circles over the skin underneath his Columbia shirt, pulling her closer against his chest from behind.

She smacked his forehead when his beard and hair started to tickle her skin from the constant movement and he frowned disapprovingly. He buried his face in the pillow underneath his head, repositioning the arm under her head so that her neck rested in the crook of his elbow and he could pin her head underneath his chin.

Finally comfortable, Eliza melted into him. She almost fell asleep again, but her body had slept enough, and the ache that settled into her muscles kept her on edge. Her eyes were burning from the shed tears, dry and redder than sunburn. Her throat ached and her nostrils were raw from all the tissues she wasted.

Matt only sleepily slurred behind her. “How’re you feelin’?” he asked.

“Everything’s in pain,” she grunted.

He stroked along her jaw, then over her cracked lips and her swollen eyelids, ending his journey on the bridge of her nose, smoothing out the wrinkle at the top and then continuing downward. “Anything I can do?”

Her heart fluttered. “Yeah,” Eliza said and shifted, still trapped by his arm but free enough to turn and look at him. “You can kiss me.”

Running a hand through his messy hair, he chuckled. Matt rolled them over so she rested on her back, his body hovering over hers, and the heat radiating off of him distracted her from the open window. She raked her nails over his arms before coming to rest around his neck. His eyes looked even darker after waking up, eyelashes full, and lids hooded. His cheeks were just as red as she suspected her own were.

“Good morning,” he whispered.

“Morning,” she whispered back.

He dipped his head lower to brush her lips with his own. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah, this is probably the first time in a while.”

He kissed her harder this time, letting her feel all of him, though his caressing touches remained sloppy. “No nightmares?” he asked.

She keened when he scratched just the right spot on her scalp, releasing a sound that resembled a purr. “No nightmares,” she said.

“Good,” he smiled his signature lopsided grin. His hand applied pressure to the back of her neck, loosening the muscles with his expert fingers.

Whatever course he took to get this good with his hands, she thanked God for that.

“You’re still tense.”

“Yeah, I’m in a lot of pain.” She hissed at a particularly tender spot he hit. “My body feels like it’s on fire.”

“I could break my fingers on your shoulder blades. Baby, this feels bad. I know you said you slept better than usual, but your muscles feel like you were fucking tense the whole night.”

“That’s ‘cause I was,” Eliza admitted. “I still am. God, I’m so tired, Matt. Like, I’m so exhausted. Not just physically tired but exhausted, and even though I slept better it felt like I didn’t sleep at all. I don’t think I can move at all today and that scares me,” she said, her breathing growing shallower with each passing word. “It’s not just because I cried the whole day… I can’t move because my mind is tired, and now my body hurts too. So fucking much.”

He gave her a sympathetic look. “I know what that’s like.”

“What do I do?”

“How about I get you an ice pack to cool your eyes first?” He pressed his lips to her swollen eyelids. “They must be sore,” he said.

“And itchy,” she stated.

“Ice helps, trust me. I’ll get you some.”

“Thanks.”

“And then I’m gonna help you get dressed so you can have some breakfast. Your appointment is at ten, which means we should leave at either nine or nine-thirty. Zero at the end, right?” He slapped the alarm clock.

Seven-thirteen am.

“Hm, there’s enough time. And if it makes you feel better, we’ll get ready at eight, so it’s a full hour and you won’t have to stress.”

If she hadn’t cried all of her tears, she would have teared up again. Instead, she choked up inside, her lungs constricted with the overwhelming consideration he put in. It was remarkable that after all of this, he was still standing strong for her sake, never faltering in his attempts to make her feel better. And it worked, at least enough to make her sit up against the headboard, ignoring the soreness and the protest of her head that she just couldn’t fucking get up.

Matt pecked her lips on his way out. He slid the door open, still half-naked in the cold bedroom and she watched him tap into the living room, hand tangled in his hair as he made his way into the kitchen.

In his still sleepy state, he almost hit his pinky toe on the living room table, missing just by an inch when he felt the couch under his fingers and took a step to the right. From then on, he guided himself on the wall until he finally reached the kitchen counter.

He brewed the coffee first so the ice pack wouldn’t go warm. Eventually, he slipped into a shirt, remaining in his boxers for the time being. Her eyes were still on him, as blurry and hurt as they were. He was beautiful, not just objectively. She loved how he moved, how he smiled, how he thought, and how he held her when the world became too much to bear.

She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep until after someone shook her awake again. Matt’s hand was warm from the cup of coffee he held, the other that was on her thigh rested coldly with the ice pack he picked up for her.

He smiled and she took it, rubbing her sore eyes before pressing the ice to her lids. She sighed. Her temples pulsated with every pinch of the headache that consumed her whole, but the cold made it a little more bearable.

“How about I give you a massage now?” he suggested.

She exhaled, “That’s too much.”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“No, I mean, it’s too much for me. I can’t handle this much attention right now. I’m sorry.”

When she dared to peek at him, her cheeks flushed not from the open window but from embarrassment, she found him grinning back at her. “Finally,” he said.

“What?”

“You just told me what you want.”

“Oh, that. I’m sorry?” she said.

He instantly grabbed her head, eyes stern with the disapproval. “No, not sorry. It’s a good thing. I was waiting for you to learn how to say no, especially to me.”

“Viktor never let me say no.”

Eliza timed the exact moment his fist tightened around the soft flesh of her thigh. His jaw clenched and the anger in his eyes burned bright. He was about ready to grab his suit, return to SHIELD and kill the man himself.

“I mean, Mueller didn’t care, he just took what he wanted, but Viktor punished me every time I dared to say no to him, and whenever I would cry, he’d add to his punishment and make it so much worse. The scars,” she pointed over her shoulder, “They’re proof of that.”

“Sweetheart…” Matt sighed. He wasn’t sure if he could touch her face, so he stopped his hand mid-air and dropped it back in his lap.

“So I stopped crying. I stopped saying no because tears are a weakness, y’know? He told me that weapons don’t weep and that deserved his punishment. I let him touch me, partially because I was afraid of the consequences if I didn’t, and partly because I thought it was normal. I thought men did this to all the kids, that it was just a thing fathers did to their daughters to show their appreciation – the lingering touches, and the sleepovers,” she said.

He nodded. “And that’s why you thought you had to let me have my way with you the other night, so I wouldn’t be mad at you?” he questioned, even though he already knew the answer.

Pressing the ice pack back to her eyes when a sharp pain tore through her optic nerve, she agreed silently, without words. He stroked his palm over her thigh, no longer grabbing it.

“I’m sorry. God! I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault I’m damaged goods.”

“Stop calling yourself that.”

“But it’s true. The men I’ve been with usually didn’t care about what I had to say, but I still went along with it. I feel so filthy now, and stupid for letting it happen. I feel stupid that I was so self-centered and careless that I screwed everything up, even myself.”

“You’re not. You’re not filthy.” He rubbed his face. “I wish I could take this weight off your shoulders, believe me, but I don’t know how. I doubt I even can.”

“God, no! You don’t want that,” she said. “You asked me plenty if I’m okay with the things you wanted to do, and I was okay with them because, with you, I feel comfortable. I can surrender my body to you and not feel like I’m being used. It’s just hard to articulate what I need sometimes, what I want or do not want, because I’m afraid there might be consequences if I do.”

“Sweetheart, there is no one that has the right to punish you for having an opinion about your own body,” he said, his eyes softening to the point she wondered if he was even real. “You have a voice. You are allowed to use that to speak your mind. You won’t be punished here for saying what you want or don’t want, and if someone dares to even touch you, I will cut their hands off with a dull knife.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Weird flex, but okay.”

“Matthew 18:8,” he told her. “And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.”

“Do you have a bible verse for everything?” she asked, more for shits and giggles than anything else.

“Yeah,” he said. “I memorized the whole thing as a kid because I had already read all of the books they kept on the shelves at the orphanage.”

That took a dark turn. “Oh. Didn’t you have friends?”

He chuckled as if she had just told him the funniest joke the century had to offer. “Me? No,” Matt said. “No one wanted to play with me when I was a little kid. They shoved me and bullied me because I was different. No one wanted to play with the blind kid out of fear they would damage me, and when I turned into a book nerd, they started laughing at me for it.”

She nudged him. “Kids can be cruel, huh?” she said.

“Yeah, you have no idea.”

“You didn’t deserve any of that,” she gently brushed his hair back, “and I’m sorry no one was there for you when you needed help.”

“No, it’s fine, water under the bridge. I dealt with it. Besides, this isn’t about me,” he said. “It’s about you.”

“I was molested as a little girl and that scarred me for life. You were constantly bullied. We’re both a bit fucked up,” she said.

“I guess you’re right, but-“

“Don’t downplay your trauma, Matthew.” Her eyes laid firmly on him. “You suffered through a life-altering accident as a kid, then your father died and you lived in an orphanage for the rest of your adolescence. That is trauma, and I would know. I’m the definition of a walking trauma bundle.” Eliza took a deep breath. “There is a lot more where that comes from, believe me, and also a lot more baggage to hate about me.”

“Eliza, what the hell happened to you to make you think like this?” Matt sighed when she only fluttered her eyelashes at him, “Actually, don’t answer that,” he said. “If I learn one more thing about what that disgusting human being did to you and the other children in the White Room, I’m gonna grab my suit and make sure he suffocates in his cell. SHIELD wouldn’t be able to stop me.”

The coffee spilled over the brim of his mug when he slapped it down on the nightstand. She had to physically pry him away from cleaning up the mess. Eliza called his name softly. “Matt…”

“That man deserves to be treated like a fucking canine. He deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his miserable life, somewhere in the middle of the ocean with a straight jacket on to make sure his hands never touch another innocent child ever again. I should kill him for what he did to you, Eliza. Viktor Volkov deserves to die.”

She kissed him to shut him up. “Stop,” she said against his lips. “Stop torturing yourself.”

“But he hurt you,” he growled. “No one is allowed to hurt you. What he did wasn’t fair. You were helpless.”

“But people will continue hurting me, it’s human nature. If you killed everyone who ever hurt me or is about to hurt me, there would be only half of the population left,” she said, chuckling slightly. She wasn’t sure why she found this so tragically funny. “What I’m saying is, there will always be someone who holds a grudge against me. I chose the life of an Avenger and that got me a lot of enemies in the process, not to mention the things that I did in the past. You can’t always protect me, and that’s okay,” she said. “Because I can protect myself. If you break your moral code… you can’t come back from something like that. I know it because I used to kill people for a living.”

Matt shook his head, determined to prove his point, but there was not a single one she could find. “You didn’t do it on purpose. I want to kill him for the sake of killing him,” he stated. “Maybe that’s the kind of man I am…” he lowered his head enough to hide the sheen of tears that had laced his eyes. “Maybe I was just trying to steer off the inevitable by putting on that suit and the mask and trying to enforce justice with my fists instead of doing the one thing that would draw a line under all of that.”

Eliza’s hands found him again, quivering, desperate to make him listen to anything other than what the little demon inside of his head had to say.

“Maybe this is what God cursed me to be. I mean, I’m going to hell anyway. My grandma used to say, be careful of the Murdock boys,” he said, “they got the devil in ‘em. You know, maybe she was right. I’ve long been thinking about it and my father… he’d be turning in his grave if he saw the choices I’ve made ever since he died. I screwed up everything he left me and then I ran. I always do that. And I don’t know why I blamed you for pushing me away when I would’ve done the same in a heartbeat as a chance to protect you from getting hurt by me.” He gnawed at his bottom lip. “We are so alike and I’m so sorry. I should have never doubted you and I shouldn’t have listened to you when you told me to leave. I knew this would happen.”

“Matt, no,” she stopped him before he could make it worse on himself.

“It’s true.”

“No. Stop saying that,” she said, “I know your father would be so proud of you. If he were here right now… if Jack Murdock would be standing here right now, he’d hug you and he’d tell you how much he loves you. And he’d see the man you grew up to be and he’d love you all the more because you’re strong. You didn’t let the demons destroy you. Instead, you tamed them and used them to your advantage. Your father loved you, so he wouldn’t even think twice about being proud of you, he just would be.”

Her words made sense while at the same time, they didn’t. He didn’t want them to be. Matt sneered. “Right, of course, because I’m the kind of son a father would be proud of,” he spat. “Someone who beats up criminals and abandons his friends and faith for a chance to be right.”

“Listen to me! You’re a good man,” she told him. “You might be damaged, but who isn’t? I know what it feels like to hate yourself to the point all you want to do is turn into someone else. My father died before I could tell him I forgive him and you told me he loved me, so he forgives me. Take your own words to heart, Matthew, because they matter something to you too. And your father loves you, even in death. He died for you. That means something,” she said, “and he’d do it again if he were here. You’re his son. You’re his legacy. He wanted the best for you and you got it. You made something out of yourself. Don’t throw that away for a chance to kill a man who doesn’t deserve to live. Sure, he doesn’t, but he also can’t die.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Eliza!” Matt ruffled his hair. “Why do you have to be so… so fucking supportive even when you’re the one who's breaking apart?”

“Because I love you!” She desperately clung to his wrists. “You know I do, so you know I’m telling the truth. I love you,” she said, pulling down where their foreheads could meet, “and I’m not going anywhere.”

He heaved, leaning into her touch. “Goddamnit,” he growled.

“I know what it’s like to want someone dead, so believe me when I say that I understand. I tried to kill him. I tried to take Viktor’s life in return for everything he did to me, for everything he destroyed and took away from me. I thought I didn’t have a choice. To get rid of his hands on me, I had to get rid of him, but that’s not true. Even if I had killed him, I’d still feel this way and I still would if you killed him for me.”

“But it’d make the world a better place.”

“While that might be true, do you wanna know why I didn’t kill him?” He nodded. “I heard your voice in the back of my head telling me not to because death is too kind for him,” she said. “You’re not that type of person, Matt. God didn’t curse you to be a killer. If you want to believe he got you into a blinding accident for a reason, it is to help people, not hurt them. You’re saving this city every fucking day; a person with only darkness and hatred in their heart could never do that. You are better than Viktor, you’re better than Hydra or SHIELD and you’re much better than the person I used to be. So don’t. Don’t break your moral code because of me, because you think you have to fix this. Don’t betray your faith because you feel guilty for something that was entirely out of your control. You’re too kind at heart, you wouldn’t survive that.”

He nuzzled his nose against hers. “What if you’re wrong?” he asked. “What if there is even the smallest sliver of a chance that my grandma might be right? That I got the Devil in me and that I can’t exorcise him because it’s genetics. Even though I know my father was a good man,” he said, “I saw what happened to him in the ring. Sometimes, his eyes would just go blank, like he was being controlled by a higher power. And he’d continue to beat the absolute crap out of his opponent.”

“But that doesn’t happen when you fight,” she argued.

“How do you know? I wear a mask.”

“I know you, Matthew.”

“Do you, really? I think only God knows what I’m supposed to become, and I’m starting to believe his intentions aren’t all too kind, that he wants me to fail and become the villain because destroying good things that come my way is just who I am. Your life went downhill from the moment I tried to stop you on that roof three weeks ago. Foggy’s life got turned upside down and now he’s stuck with me in a law office that doesn’t make money, burned by me being Daredevil and Karen… Fisk almost got to them and it’s all my fault. I destroy everything and everyone in my path. If that is not something the devil would do, I don’t know what is.”

The frustration wrapped around her like plastic foil. Eliza grunted. Her palms pressed to his skull tighter, erasing all possibilities to exit, and she opened her heart to him. She opened the door she had kept on her soul, on the burning red gem waiting in the core of her being, sustaining her like the beating organ pumping blood inside of her chest did.

Her eyes glowed red. It felt so good, no longer draining but powerful, and she felt no regrets.

“Matthew, look at me!” she ordered.

He shook his head. “No. Don’t show me my father and make him tell me I’m gonna be okay,” he told her. “I couldn’t handle that.”

Reality had changed around him, he could feel the shift in the air and the tingling under his skin. She reached for him, tugging at all the strings to his soul, to his perception and she lured him into the spell of crimson need.

“It’d be a lie,” he said.

She huffed. “That’s not what I’m doing. Open your eyes and look at me!”

“Fucking hell, what-“ he stopped. The world stopped. His breathing stopped. His heart stopped.

His life stopped.

Matt swore he died. He passed away and went to heaven, regained his eyesight, and ended up in paradise, the garden of Eden, God’s castle. He was dreaming, his mind mixing up the imaginary pictures he kept stored away in case he needed to pretend he was okay, normal, just for a moment. This couldn’t be real. He stopped existing. He died and vanished into dust, disappearing to another terrestrial world existing at the same time as the one she resided in.

She played with the hairs at the nape of his neck, letting her hands wander over his back and pulling him even closer. “Hi,” she whispered.

Tears sprung into his eyes. He touched her face and traced the features that were now a clear picture before him. He ran his finger along her lips, her jawline, the soft hairs of her brows, and then lastly, her actual hair.

She told him once she wouldn’t do it, but she couldn’t help herself. He needed something good, and perhaps this would help him to believe again, just for a moment. It was the first time she actively used her powers again and while it felt good, the power that ran through her veins was almost terrifying. She saw what she could do. What if she hurt him? But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

She held him, loved him, and gently held him in her open arms. He was all she needed and all she would ever need.

“You’re real,” he breathed.

“I’m real,” she said.

“Oh… God.”

He couldn’t help but pray. Surely, this was all a dream.

“Am I anything like you imagined me to be?”

“Oh, no. Fuck, no! You’re so much better, sweetheart.” He swallowed the needy sob. “You’re so damn beautiful. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe you’re doing this for me. I can’t believe… Jesus. Hi,” he said and upon feeling her smile, he chuckled. “Hi, sweetheart.”

Eliza caught his tears, wiping them away, her fingers gentle as she did so. “I love you so much,” she whispered.

His eyes roamed her face, not daring to move away until he memorized every last crevice in her skin. If her face was already this beautiful, he could only fathom what she would look like underneath all of that.

“Don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it. You’re making me see,” Matt sniffled, “That’s so… I don’t know what to say. God, fuck! What is happening to me?”

“You don’t have to say anything,” she assured him. “Because I’m here. This is real.”

He wanted to speak regardless of his loss for words. “I can’t even… Ugh! You told me you didn’t want me to see your face, so why-”

“You needed it. You needed something to hold onto.”

“You… fuck, can I just… Can I kiss you?”

Eliza nodded. He dipped his head and captured her lips. She sighed contently at the gentle caress, his hand resting on her throat and she held his wrist right there.

She heard him murmur against the skin of her lips, “This feels so much more intense now.”

“In a good or bad way?” she questioned.

In response, he kissed her again. “Good,” he said. “So fucking good. I don’t want this to stop, ever.”

“It has to, eventually.”

“I know, but for now, just… Let us stay like this. Let me look at your face for a while.”

“Okay,” she nodded, “we can do that.”

Time was a construct anyway.

She laid down, resting on her side and he mirrored her exact position. His hand remained in her hair, stroking it. Her heartbeat rang in his ears. He couldn’t get over how her skin felt while he could look at her. The way her eyes fluttered whenever he brushed her sensitive lips or her throat and the desperate sigh that passed them when he cradled her reddened cheeks in his hand. While her features were set in stone from the tension, she relaxed visibly at his touch and it was visible in the fading crease between her eyebrows, the wrinkle of worry disappearing for only just a moment.

He felt her features before, but nothing could have prepared him for this, and he hadn’t been able to open his eyes and see for so long, he forgot how overwhelming the world could be. If he saw the city, he would surely die. She was the only view he needed and when she would let go later, he would keep her face in his mind so every time he touched her, he could imagine what she looked like. It was a huge gift with an even bigger meaning. A gift he wouldn’t have asked for, she just did it for him and he had never felt more loved.

Matt chuckled, a lonely tear sliding down his cheek. He was so goddamn grateful. His struggle with faith didn’t matter when he had the greatest source of hope right next to him, willing to hold on for both of us even when she was hurting. She gave back what he gave her. No one had ever done that before, not for him at least.

“I love you so much,” he whispered. “You have no idea how much. I don’t just love you, I’m in love with you. I’m so deep in it, I don’t think I could get out even if I tried.”

“Eh, I got a faint idea,” Eliza smiled her brightest smile, the one that could easily outmatch the sun and made every room light up with her presence.

He traced his fingers over her features again. “Will you stay?” he asked.

She kissed the tip of his nose and he scrunched, chuckling softly at the display of affection. His forehead moved to press against hers again. “Always,” she said.

“Cross your heart?”

“Hope to die,” she finished, drawing a cross right over the left side of her chest.

He snorted, pulling at her hair slightly. “Don’t say that,” he said.

“Isn’t that how the phrase goes though?”

“Yeah, but we don’t hope to die.”

“Right… too soon?”

“A bit, yeah.” He scrunched his nose again.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Matt answered by pulling her into his side and tangling their lips as he did their limbs. To breathe, moved away only enough so he could inhale and exhale, his minty breath hitting her face. She smiled, a genuine one and the sight of it was even better than he imagined, too. His hands trailed over her sides before coming to rest on her shoulder blades.

Her shirt had bunched up slightly, bare skin touching his. The connection was so strong, he could feel it in every muscle and nerve. They screamed her name repeatedly, chanting it, praying as if she was the mercy God granted him. She was an Angel sent from heaven above, and he was the devil of Hell’s Kitchen who had once been an Angel too, and to her, he still was. He was pure at heart, no matter how much he liked to deny it.

One of his fingers ghosted over her hip. She shoved him away gently. “I see what you’re doing,” she hummed.

“I do too now,” he retorted. The smirk resting on his lips seemed almost content.

“Wouldn’t you like to know what I look like naked?”

“Perhaps,” Matt shrugged, “or perhaps I just want to feel your skin like this.”

“You want me to take my shirt off?” she asked, the question intended as innocent. “To touch my skin, I mean.”

He shook his head, removing his hand to return to her face. “I’m not spoiling the surprise that is feeling you up with my senses only.”

“So we just lie here?”

“Yeah, we just lie here.”

“Okay.”

He loved her so much and he kept telling her that, even long after her eyes returned to their normal color and his vision faded into scolding fire and nothing to make out.

She was gone, but he didn’t care because the picture lingered and he could still feel her. She was a part of him and his fingers knew her body inside and out. He didn’t need to see her to know she was beautiful, and it made him love her no less.

“I don’t know how I deserve you,” he whispered into the cold morning air. “I don’t know why you’re here, but I know I don’t ever want this to stop. I want to be the right man for you, if I can. Maybe if I try hard enough…”

“Hey, you don’t have to sell me on reasons to want you,” Eliza interrupted him, gentle hands touching his skin as always.

Always. She would stay, always.

“You don’t have to be scared you’re not enough, Matthew. What we have is enough. It’s good. You’re good. I mean, what if it’s just you and me and that’s all we needed to be? The world could just fall away and then it’d be only the two of us. Can we try that?”

“While all of that is true,” he said, “I’m not going to stop giving you more reasons to not let me go.”

“What came before won’t count anymore.”

“We can try that.”

Asking for help isn’t the hardest part, it’s the help itself that makes you feel like you’re going through hell with no way out. Your past happens to you all over again and you’re forced to stand by, watch and deal with it. And dealing with the pain is something that scorns an already broken soul.

They made it to Mrs. Darcy’s office with five more minutes to spare. Eliza’s feet remained glued to the asphalt, a summer breeze brushing through her hair and causing the fluffy strands at the top of Matt’s forehead to bounce.

His hand landed on the small of her back, giving her a gentle push. “You want me to go in with you?” he asked.

“No,” she answered. The last thing she wanted was for him to hear how fucked up she truly was. “I mean,” she realized she had answered way too fast, so she tried again, “No, I have to do this alone.”

Matt drummed against her jacket. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” That was a lie, but he didn’t question her about it. “You can go, I got this.”

He huffed, obviously disapproving of her choice. Still, he leaned down to peck her lips. “I love you,” he said.

I’ve been struggling with questions of identity as of late.

I used to like who I was. It’s not every day you’re given a second chance. You gotta honor it, right?

Second chances are meant to help you do better than the first time. For Eliza, this was her third chance to turn her life around and make something out of herself. She graduated from questioning her identity to having a revelation about who she was and who she had once been. She understood everything so much clearer now and yet when she looked into the mirror, she still saw the same stranger she met seven years ago when Nick Fury handed her the new ID and her passport.

There’s this emptiness inside me, Mrs. Darcy. It’s like there’s a hole in my soul and no matter how hard I try, I can’t fill it. Whatever connection to reality I had is just… it’s gone. You know, I like knowledge. I like knowing a lot of things, it keeps me on top of my game, but this- I know nothing about myself and it’s scaring me shitless.

She was more scared of what the truth would make of her than she was of herself, although her mental state was terrifying in itself. Every time she thought about what she had done in the name of trauma, she was left horrified.

Eliza stared at the painting of the curly-haired, faceless woman hung up on the wall behind the leather couch Mrs. Darcy currently resided on, one leg crossed over the other, arm stretched out over the length of the backrest, and her notebook resting in her lap.

“I’m fine,” she stated into the silence.

The therapist shifted, not even bothering to make a secret out of her amusement. “Really?” she asked.

“Except that I’m not,” she added then. “I’m not fine.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t keep pretending that all of this is normal. Maybe you’re right, maybe I’m traumatized, but there has to be a way to get out of this, right? There has to be a way to make the pain stop.”

“Well, there are many ways this can go, obviously,” she began to say.

“I’m not going back to rehab,” Eliza interrupted.

“Relax. Not what I was thinking. That’s only option two,” she said. “Option one consists of two conditions.” Mrs. Darcy leaned forward to mirror her patient’s posture. “One, I’ll prescribe you a series of medications.”

“And two?”

“Therapy sessions with me four times a week and once you’re feeling better, I want you to start considering support group meetings. And I want to conduct regular drug testing, just in case.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

“It’s for your own good.”

“Why don’t you just admit me to the mental hospital?” she bit back.

“Do you want to get better?” Mrs. Darcy challenged.

“Yes, but-”

“Then you don’t have a choice.”

Eliza groaned. She was afraid this might happen. “But I don’t want to be viewed as weak,” she said. “I don’t want to be the burden everyone has to take care of. I can’t do this again. I’ve been through hell before, but this feels so much worse and it scares me. I can manipulate reality, literally. I can make a blind man see, I can create things out of nowhere and change the way the world works with just the palm of my hand. At least that’s what the story of the infinity stones dictates.”

She scoffed. “I can do all of that, but I can’t fix myself. I can’t do that and it sucks. It makes my powers useless because everything I do just feels wrong. So all of this…” she said, “It makes me feel weak and I hate feeling weak, especially when there is an indescribable power running through my veins, right under my skin, waiting to be used for good. I tried them and it felt good, but only until my mind screamed at me and then everything sucked again. I thought I understood now. Truth is, I don’t. I know nothing and that’s scary as shit. So I can’t be the weak one, not anymore. I need to learn how to be this new version of myself and I can’t be weak during that. I just can’t. That’s why I’m terrified – why I was so afraid of asking for help. I don’t want to be weak,” she stated.

Her voice sounded like a needle on the ground of an empty and silent room with high walls and linoleum floors. Drop, ping, echo.

Her leg bounced in the same rhythm. Nails dug into the fabric of her jeans, pulling at the fabric. Her fingers searched for anything she could touch or hold onto - Mrs. Darcy tilted her head.

“You remind me so much of the scared young woman that came to me less than three weeks ago, questioning her identity.” She caught onto the familiar aspects, the behavior she had more than anticipated, and Eliza huffed once again. “You know who you are now,” she continued, “but to achieve that, you went through hell. And there is still so much left unsaid that you will have to figure out on your own now. That sucks, I agree with you, but there is a way for everything. You came to me, not the other way around because you are ready to take the hand that is offered to you. You’re ready to take the road to recovery so you can, as you said, make sure you learn how to deal with this new version of yourself. That’s not weakness, it’s strength.”

“How do you differentiate?” Eliza questioned. “How do you go about differentiating between strength and weakness? Is there a psychological guide to that or are you just trying to make me feel better?”

Mrs. Darcy smiled. “I’ve been doing this job a very long time, Liz. I know a strong person when I see one. The concept of weakness being a bad thing is a common misconception that comes with a lot of guilt, especially for those suffering from mental illness. It’s okay to be weak,” she said, “but as soon as you decide to get help when you’re feeling down, you’re already stronger than those who belittle you for it. And if you decide to let a doctor treat your condition, that is a huge display of strength that should and will be acknowledged. The question is just, will you let me help you without putting hurdles in your way?”

Eliza switched her eyes between the painting of the beautiful woman on the wall, the name of an artist she had never heard before signed at the bottom, and the therapist’s expectant face.

“Okay,” she decided, finally.

As hard as that choice was to make, the woman made a very convincing argument. Matt loved her, she wasn’t alone, and wanting to get better was a display of strength so she could heal from a weakness that was nowhere near self-inflicted. There was nothing to feel guilty for.

Mrs. Darcy nodded. “Good.”

“And I’ll be better after that?” she asked. “With the medication and the therapy and the support group meetings, will I get better?”

“If you take your recovery seriously, sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember how long it took for that to heal?” Mrs. Darcy answered, pointing at her covered stomach and Eliza instantly wrapped her arms around herself, the scar screaming in protest at the reminder. “At first, you didn’t take it seriously and almost got yourself hurt again,” she said. “Then, you let someone help you get better and managed to regain full physical capacity in just a couple of days…”

Eliza frowned. “And it’s the same with my head?”

“It’s the same with your head, yes. Quid pro quo. I give you medication and a very clear treatment plan and in exchange, I get your trust and cooperation to ensure your recovery goes smoothly.”

“Like physical therapy and doctor’s appointments went hand in hand?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not so different,” she whispered to herself. “And you got better.” Convincing herself was harder without the voice in her head coming to the rescue with her snarky remarks.

She missed her.

Eliza sat in silence for a moment, contemplating, thinking, and bouncing her leg like a madwoman on the border of collapse before she told the woman before her, “Okay, let’s do this.”

Mrs. Darcy extended the prescription in her hand. “We start today,” she said.

Today.

I can’t tell you who you are or who you’re supposed to be. I can only show you who you are to everyone else. Your name is Eliza Bennett. You’re the girl who has devoted her life to saving and protecting people to seek penance for what she’s done in the past.

You have to find your inner self by working with yourself.

Who was Eliza Bennett, really? The question still rotated inside her head. She had an answer now though. She knew what to say.

Who was she?

She was Alina Isolde, named after her grandmother, and the daughter of Guinevere Hunt and Anton Sokovin-Petrova. Genetically mutated through the reality stone, born like any human being, delivered to Hydra, and turned into an assassin. Saved by Natasha Romanoff, adopted by SHIELD, trained to be a spy, and then taken under Tony Stark’s wing where she became an Avenger.

Eliza Bennett was a daughter to two dead parents, a found sister, a friend and confidant, a teacher and a student, an addict, a victim, and, most importantly, she was a survivor. And through all of that, she became a lover, finally able to add a girlfriend to the list.

Eliza Bennett was someone made out of flesh and blood. Someone with a beating heart. Thud, thud thud, thud. She was alive, she was breathing, and didn’t have to live her life in miserable loneliness anymore. She was back on her feet, right where she needed to be, and the rest of the puzzle pieces would fall in place soon enough to complete the picture.

Long story short, she survived, and she had to give herself all the credit for that.

“Father,” Matt’s voice echoed off the high walls of Clinton Church. He stood in the middle of the aisle, the red and blue tinted light of the colorful windows falling on his face and reflecting off his maroon glasses.

Father Lantom stood at the front, going through the lit candles at the altar. He relit those that had gone out and removed the ones that were paid little to no attention. At the sound of his voice, he looked up and over his shoulder.

“Matthew,” he replied with a certain element of shock in his voice. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” he said. “Are you doing alright?”

“Do you have a minute to talk?” Matt asked him. He had some time to waste and he felt the desperate need to get some things off his chest, things he couldn’t tell Eliza. He wasn’t sure how. She was going through problems of her and adding to that his crisis of faith would only make her feel guiltier. And with the pastor, he knew at least that he understood where he was coming from.

“Do you want me to take confession?” the father asked, “Or do you want to chat over a latte?”

“If you have the time to spare, I’d take you up on that latte, if you don’t mind.”

“There’s not much to do today. Typical Monday morning. I’m sure I have an hour or two before this place starts to get crowded. Is that enough?”

“More than,” he said.

“Okay, then. Let’s get the coffee maker running. The last time you came to me for a latte, you didn’t finish it. Perhaps you could try not to waste that expensive stuff today.”

Matt chuckled. “I wouldn’t dare.”

They sat together in the back room, the brewing hot lattes resting on the wooden table. He scratched at the cracked porcelain, scraping off some of the lacquer that decorated the brim of the mug.

“So,” Father Lantom prompted, “What brings you here today, Matthew?”

“The last time we sat together at this table I asked you if you believed in the existence of the Devil,” he said. “You gave me an answer that might as well have been straight from a theology book.”

“I only told you the truth about what I believe,” he countered.

The oxidized heat from the coffee blew over his face. “That’s not why I’m here, father. I don’t plan on asking you the same question again.”

“Then what is it?”

With a sigh that parted the milk on top of the latte and destroyed the perfectly crafted cocoa topping, Matt slid the glasses off his nose and ran a hand over his eyes. Father Lantom took note of the dark circles adorning his under eyes and the dull brown his usually bright eyes had faded into. He took a sip from his beverage, watching as the man he’s known ever since he was a kid fell apart in front of him.

He stammered, the sounds not quite coming out and his eyes missed the mark as well. “Why,” he began.

When he didn’t continue, he raised his eyebrows, leaning forward. “Why what?” the father asked.

“The Bible keeps stating that God is merciful. He’s portrayed as the savior of humanity,” he said and the confession opened a vent without the possibility of closing it again. The words came flowing out of him like a broken tap, bitter and poisoned, though at the same time desperate and pleading as if he wasn’t talking to the man he’s trusted since he came to the orphanage but to God himself. “He’s someone who only sees the good in people and forgives those who make mistakes for their sins,” Matt stated, “and if you seek penance for your actions, if you confess and make amends, make up for your mistakes and put your faith in him, he’ll guarantee you a spot on heaven if, and only if, you keep trying to be better for him.”

“Technically, yes,” father Lantom replied.

“Technically? Isaiah – Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. Or Lamentations – The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. They all portray him as mighty enough to forgive you even for the worst of sins, even if it breaks one of the Ten Commandments.”

“You forgot Deuteronomy,” he butted in.

“Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments,” Matt recited. “No,” he said, and his voice took an even more bitter tone as he chuckled, “I didn’t forget. You know what Exodus says about protecting the innocent?”

Of course, he did. He was the pastor, after all. He ran the church. He helped raise the children at the orphanage and teach them the ways of the Catholic Church, but more in his way than the ancient, prejudiced things that most Catholics still lived by. He memorized the Bible up and down and he was probably the smartest person Matt knew when it came to religion and faith. Father Lantom raised him. He trusted him to tell him the truth, but as his faith started to fade and he started to doubt his purpose in life, the man’s words mattered only a little.

“When Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.’ God protected them. God is supposed to protect good people and punish the bad. He’s supposed to punish the sinners who feel no regret for what they’ve done and make sure that the saints, the ones asking for forgiveness, are safe and sound. He’s supposed to bring peace,” he said. “So why is it, father, that even the best people find themselves amid disaster, alone and exposed, and God’s not even answering their prayers? Why does he let bad things happen to good people?”

The mood in the room had dropped drastically, turning the air thicker and colder than before. “Matthew,” Father Lantom said, “That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself, to answer a question like that. I mean, if you look at all of the wars happening around us, you can do an entire digression on the topic and it still won’t be enough,” he told him, “because there is no actual answer to that. I don’t know why. No one knows why.”

“What the hell are we supposed to do then?”

“Language!”

“Sorry, father.” Matt tilted his head back, crossed his fingers over his chest, over the golden necklace dangling from his neck still, right under his dress shirt, and apologized to the crucifix he knew was hanging on the wall behind him.

“Right now,” he said, “every last bible verse I remember sounds like they’re pretension, a lie concocted by the prophets, and it’s making me think God isn’t as merciful as they claimed. He isn’t there to have the backs of those asking him for help. And he certainly doesn’t care about stopping the sins he claims to despise from happening and destroying the lives of innocent people.”

The father sighed again. While his voice had changed in volume throughout his speech, he remained calm. “You want the answer of a priest or my personal opinion?” he asked.

“I want an explanation,” Matt retorted, “not just an answer to shut me down.”

“I told you, there is no real answer. I don’t know why God does or doesn’t do certain things. That’s up to him and him alone.”

“Great, so God does what he wants, consequences be damned?”

“He’s not a person, Matthew. He’s a deity. Viewing him as an almighty savior is a common misconception, but I told you that once, back when you were a teenager. I told you that God can’t just interact with us whenever he pleases. He’s there to look over us and offer us a hand every once in a while through signs and prayers, but he can’t magically appear and end wars that the greed of humans has started. He’s not a wizard, he’s God. When bad things happen to good people,” the father told him, “It’s because certain things are meant to happen a certain way, but not because God dictates our destinies. Bad things happen to us because that’s just what life is. Life is unfair, it’s cruel, it’s vile and so we often forget that God is essentially supposed to heal our emotional scars, not our physical ones. He doesn’t intercept because he can’t. We write our own history,” he said. “He can’t change that. He made us this way for a reason, we just have to accept that.”

His fist collided with the table. “Fuck!”

“Matthew.”

“No, I have to…” He rose to his feet, starting to pace, but not even that would stop the boiling anger in his chest. “There are people who twist religion to hurt others. They torture and kill in the name of God,” he said. “And then there are children who are at the receiving end of that torture. Innocent little children who don’t know any better pray to God asking him to help them out, but he doesn’t listen. He never does. He just left her there after she cried for him countless times, and so she gave up.”

Her - Father Lantom raised his eyebrows. The pronoun changed the situation behind his words drastically, and he finally started to realize why he came to him to ask such a complicated question. A question he should know better about.

He exchanged his empty mug for the full one on Matt’s side of the table. “Keep going,” he urged.

Matt sneered. “She gave up on God, on faith, because God failed her when she needed him the most. And now that everything is over, he doesn’t even inflict punishment on the person who’s behind all of this. He could get away with it because there is no real proof for what he did; all of his victims are dead, except for one, but she’s broken now because of him, and facing him is not… it’s not a choice she’d want to make. And since she’s a young woman, no male-dominated court would rule in her favor. And I’m standing here now like a fool because I dedicated my life to enforcing justice, but in this case, I am helpless. The law is helpless, it’s flawed, it won’t do anything other than possibly release a dangerous child molester into the world,” he said. “He holds a grudge now, father because she hurt him and she destroyed everything he built for himself, and if he gets out of that cell alive… I might lose her for good this time. So right now, I’m just torn while she’s still suffering from his hands, and it pains me that I can’t help her. She never did anything wrong before he took her childhood. That doesn’t seem fair.”

“And what exactly do you want me to do about it, Matthew?”

“I need you to tell me how to keep my faith in God when all he does is fail me and the people I care about.” He stood with his hands on his hips again, eyes red and drained, and the faintest sheen of tears framed his face. “There is seemingly nothing I can do to change the fact that this man, this disgrace, ruined her life. Except for this one thing… If his case ever goes to trial, we’re screwed. She’s screwed. I can’t let that happen, so he needs to be erased from the narrative. If God won’t do something about it, I have to. I’d do it for her, I’d do it for every single one of his victims just to make sure no other kid has to go through the same shit again,” he said.

Father Lantom looked him deep into his sightless eyes when he asked, “What exactly do you mean by that?”

Matt sighed. “I need you to teach me how to believe again before I break the highest of the Ten Commandments.”

“Ah,” he said. “I figured this day would come.”

“You don’t understand, father. That man deserves to die,” he stated, “and every passing second makes it harder not to think about it. With every passing second, my hatred grows stronger and I want nothing more than to storm his cell and squeeze the life out of that miserable throat.”

“But you don’t want to kill him, do you, Matthew? I think that’s the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen talking, not you, not Matthew Murdock. You’re not like that. You’re not cruel, not ruthless, you’re just a man trying to protect his city. Murder is not your agenda, ever. You have to understand that.”

“I am Daredevil. I can’t change who I am, but I can be there for her and if I have to break this one rule,” he ground his teeth, “This one tiny rule to make sure she’s gonna be okay... Well, that’s not a hard choice to make. I’d choose her over God any day and that terrified me.”

“Would she want that?” he emphasized in hopes he would give more than he had to offer. “You give up your faith like that? For her?”

“No,” said Matt, “But she’s only saying that to protect me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Whose side are you on, father?”

The man answered without missing a beat, “God’s and the laws.”

“Well, then you’re more foolish than I thought you were.”

He grabbed his cane from the table, opened it, and slid the red-tinted glasses back on his face. Matt patted the wooden surface. “Thanks for the latte,” he said.

“Matthew,” father Lantom called after him, “Wait!”

He didn’t wait. He took the familiar road down the corridor, down the aisle, and out of the heavy double doors into the humid New York summer air.

The first few days were hard. Just when Eliza thought it couldn’t get any worse, the claws clinging to her soul dragged her further down. She flapped around desperately, trying to stay afloat, but the current was too strong. The waves slapped her across the face, forcing her under the surface. At first, she managed to swim up for air. She managed to keep her nose over water, at least, so she wouldn’t drown. Though the more water she swallowed, the more of it landed in her lungs. Breathing got harder, draining her of strength, and her arms only flailed aimlessly around the ocean. They were no longer strong enough to keep her up and she was so tired, she eventually gave up. She passed out and sank, heading straight for the bottom.

Antidepressants take a while to take effect. The stronger ones might hit faster, but until the body is fully adjusted, you won’t feel the effects.

She was afraid of what the pills would do to her. The last time she tried them, she lost control of her powers. But Eliza had no choice. She was dying, or she felt like she was, but she honestly believed that if she kept breathing, she would die. The pain tore through her chest, right where she suspected the soul was and paralyzed her entire body.

Every day, Matt supervised the intake of her medication closely - he would have forced them down her throat if she had said no. They were working. She hated to admit it to herself but the pills were working. The first two nights, she slept straight through. No nightmares, no dreams. Following the new substance in her body, her appetite increased and on the third day, she managed to force herself out of bed and into the shower.

Matt stayed. He called in sick for the week, causing a dispute between him and Foggy, but when he told him that Eliza was alive and that she was his reason for not being able to go to work, his friend eased up. Although he wasn’t pleased to hear that the girl he now considered something close resembling family was back and he didn’t even get to see her. Matt wouldn’t elaborate further, he couldn’t, it wasn’t his place, so Foggy simply took the information and tried to store it away before curiosity could kill him.

Eliza insisted many times that he should return to work without her, but he wouldn’t leave. He wanted to wait and take her with him the next time he stepped foot into the office, but the more time she spent cooped up together with him, the less she felt in control of herself.

She had no power over him, not even when she told him to spend a few hours at night outside. She told him to resume his activities as Daredevil until she was out of the woods completely and they could start anew, but even with that, he refused.

The chances of Matt getting hurt were higher as Daredevil than at home in bed with her, but Eliza saw the way he tensed whenever he heard something outside, and that hurt her more than seeing him with a black eye or a few broken ribs.

Sometimes he would sit on the couch long after he put her to bed, fists clenched at his sides as he listened to the sirens signaling another crime that hadn’t been stopped, another hurt civilian, and another criminal set lose on the streets of his beloved Hell’s Kitchen.

He spent more time in the bathroom, holding his head underwater, and when that didn’t work, he started to rearrange the kitchen to distract himself. Soft jazz music often played in the background, or he put on noise-canceling headphones and he wouldn’t talk to her until he was finished with whatever project he put his mind to. All because he didn’t want to leave her while she was at her most vulnerable. The less she suffered, the more he retreated into his shell, but that shell was see-through and offered little to no protection, only prolonged pain.

Eliza had enough of watching him run himself into the ground for the sake of her mental well-being. She had to get back out there, as did Matt. They desperately needed to get a life.

And when she finally got the go-ahead after two very cruel weeks, no one was more excited than her to return to a life of normal. As normal as it could get, anyway. Matt wasn’t pleased, but she refused to let him talk her down.

“Foggy sends his love,” he told her after a particularly draining phone call with his colleague about a case offer they received. “And he said he can’t wait for us to work together. Most importantly, he can’t wait to see you again. But he also said that you should charge your phone,” he pressed a kiss to her head on his way past the couch, “Which is something I keep telling you, but you won’t listen.”

She looked at the dead cell phone on the living room table. It still existed and it had all the necessary numbers to call to make amends, but every time she considered plugging it in, she stopped herself. They would find her if she did – Happy, Pepper, possibly even Tony. She couldn’t face them. Not yet.

Addicts anonymous offers twelve steps to follow on the journey to full sobriety. One of them is admission. Eliza had to admit to herself that she had a problem, but not only to herself. Forgiveness is only the eleventh step, yet truly the most important. Making amends with the past makes it easier to look forward to what lies in the future. Put a lock on the chapter and place the book back on the shelf, perhaps start a new one.

She made amends with everyone involved, except Foggy and Happy. She cared about them too much to look them in the eyes. In the case of Matt’s business partner though, she didn’t have a choice. He automatically became her boss when she took her boyfriend up on his offer, and since he told Foggy to finalize it as soon as she was able to leave the house and no longer pose a danger to herself or others, there was no way out. She wanted this, but facing him and Karen – especially Karen – after such a long time and everything that happened, was stressful and had her shaking just at the thought of it.

But life has never been known to be particularly kind, and her third chance started to look pretty good. Saying no to starting over out of fear of being rejected and hated by the people she loved would’ve been a foolish thing to do, and she no longer wanted to be foolish. She wanted to make the right choice and she had – facing the music was the hard part.

Eliza woke Matt that day with a slight nudge. He grumbled and rolled over, pressing his face into the pillows. The sensory overload made it harder for him to sleep, so even without his vigilante duties, he fell asleep only after three in the morning and often got up before her so he could make coffee.

This time though, she made sure she woke up before him. Perhaps it was the excitement of getting back into the world or she was too anxious to sleep; either way, she woke up way before the set alarm to return the favor Matt had given her many times before.

She went into the kitchen, bare feet hitting the ground with small taps that she hoped he didn’t pick up on. His blue dress shirt hung loosely over her figure. Yawning, she took the orange capsule standing on the counter, opened it, and poured a pill into her hand. Two more followed. They tasted bitter on her tongue before she managed to swallow them with some much-needed coffee.

Why would Matt ever voluntarily get up this early in the morning? She thought back to working out with Steve, and his schedule often started at five. That had been far worse than standing in the soft morning sun breaking through tinted windows in the apartment of the man she loved, but seven was still far too early for her liking. Eliza considered going back to bed, sliding under his protective arm, and sleeping some more, but the coffee was already done and she had other plans.

She had to get back on her feet and learn how to walk without crutches. She had to learn how to help herself, and for that, she had to put a lot more personal effort into the process. She had to want this.

Mrs. Darcy never pressured her to charge her phone and face what was left of her family because they posed a very obvious trigger she wanted to avoid while the effects of the antidepressants were still underway, but her sobriety was a very important aspect too and what she learned from the many meetings she had been to years before, making amends and asking for forgiveness plays a vital part in recovery. It would help her get better, not slow her down, so she inserted the charger into her phone, leaving it out to charge on the dinner table.

She would check again once the device restored itself after such a long time of being empty and unused.

Matt stirred when she lightly shook his shoulder, grumbling something inaudible before he rolled over and went back to sleep. She sighed. Waking Matt was a dangerous game, one most people would lose at. But she wasn’t willing to let him get away with it.

She swung her leg over his hip, straddling his sleeping frame. His eyebrows twitched - he could feel her heat right over his crotch and the sudden pressure applied to his body coaxed him out of unconsciousness.

“Matt,” Eliza whispered into his ear. “Matthew,” she said. “Wake up.”

He didn’t, although his hands came to rest on her hips as if his body had gotten so used to the motion, he didn’t even have to be awake for it.

If this was what he thought would happen, she had to disappoint him. Instead of grinding herself on his clothed cock, she pulled the pillow from under his head roughly. His head hit the mattress with a thud. Slowly, he started to blink back to life, but not in time to stop the fluffy cotton wrapped in silk from coming down on his face.

His reflexes came in motion when she hit him a second time, and by then he was already wide awake.

“What the-” he forced the pillow away from her hand, grabbing her wrists and crossing them on his chest. “What did I ever do to you?” his voice sounded ten times more attractive when it was still laced with sleep, groggy and hoarse, a sound born straight from his chest.

She grinned. Her chest filled with a sudden warmth that, the past couple of days, had been little to non-existent. The numbness subsided, leaving behind a state of relief, still clouded by exhaustion and thoughts she couldn’t shut off, especially not when it came to the man underneath her, but the pain was barely there anymore. Or she couldn’t feel it, anyway.

“You need to get up,” she told him.

“Why?” he challenged.

Eliza attempted to steal the pillow from her side of the bed. “Because…” he caught onto her sheepish plan before she could follow through on it. “We have to go to work.”

She barely even flinched when the pillow bounced off her face. “Rude,” she said.

Matt shrugged. “You started it.”

“I just wanted to wake you.”

“There are a million different ways you could have done that.”

“Oh,” she cocked her head to the side, “Is that so, Murdock?”

“Don’t start something you can’t finish, sweetheart,” he said.

“You mean, like, suffocate you with this pillow?”

“That’s not… You know, some days, you terrify me a little.” He pinched his fingers together, not leaving space for air between the two. “Just a little,” he said.

She smirked. “I know,” she told him. Pecking his lips, she placed the pillow aside and brushed his bed hair back. “But you love me all the more for it.”

“Hmph,” Matt grunted in disapproval, but instantly melted into her touch when she kissed him again. His hands stroked up and down her back. “You’re lucky I love you, or else I would take your death threats very seriously.”

“Naw, don’t be afraid,” she cooed. “I would never hurt you, Matty.”

He squeezed the flesh of her hip. “I’m not afraid, especially not of you. I mean, those puppy dog eyes you give when you want something,” he stated, “they’re not very terrifying.”

“You sure?” Eliza squealed when he pinched her again, digging his fingers right into the most ticklish spot, and the sparkle in his eyes told her she screwed up. “Ow. Matt, stop it!”

“Why?”

“Because- HEY!” He dug his fingers into her waist, moving them back and forth and pressing further down until she was wheezing with laughter.

She rolled off and he followed, using his weight to pin her down and continued tickling her into the mattress. Tears ran down her face and the laughter got higher and more breathless with every move of his fingers. She couldn’t even fight back.

She gasped when he suddenly attacked her neck with kisses. Not gentle ones though. He found the spot behind her ear and used his stubble to scratch against the skin there. She squirmed.

“Stop it!” she laughed. “Matt, please. I mean it. Have mercy on me!”

He chuckled, answering plainly, “No.”

“Please, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean what I sa-ah-id.” Eliza clawed at his arm, giggling uncontrollably to the point her stomach hurt and she couldn’t move anymore. He had complete access now. “Would you stop?” she panted between squeaks, “This is unfa-ah- unfair! Matt, please. Oh, stop it! Time-out, time-out!”

He finally eased up.

“Jesus, I should sue you,” she took a deep breath, “for- for tickling assault.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Tickling assault?” Matt mused. “Seriously?”

“Yes, tickling assault! Look it up. It’s written in the Constitution.”

“Objection, speculation!”

“Overruled,” she said. “The plaintiff has evidence.”

“Oh, really? What does she have on me?”

“Evidence,” Eliza emphasized. “Evidence you won’t get to see without my very good lawyer present.”

“In that case, I take the fifth.”

“HA! I knew it!”

“That was not a confession,” he added. “I’m just choosing not to incriminate myself.”

She scoffed. “Weak! Hiding behind the fifth amendment to conceal the truth that you are, in fact, a serial tickler.”

He smiled even brighter at her playfully articulated words and the frustration of her bottom lip when she realized he was mocking her. “The fifth amendment is every US citizen’s right to take in a court of law. C’mon, sweetheart, if you want to work with me you have to know that,” he said, albeit teasingly.

“Oh, I do know that.”

“Yeah? Did you read the research material I gave you?”

A pause. “I watched Hamilton,” she said.

Matt didn’t protest when she slung her leg around his hip and rolled him onto the mattress, resuming her position in his lap. He chuckled at her previous words, the lyrics of the musical still stuck in his head from the many days before.

She had worn headphones while the soundtrack played on his laptop, keeping the volume down not to disturb him while he was sleeping. Little did she know that he had been awake the entire three hours, listening to her sing along under her breath, somehow memorizing every single word after the first listen. At first, it reminded him of the day the musical premiered and the album dropped on all streaming platforms, and he sat in his office across from Foggy’s and the former theater kid started to rap every last song loudly, including the sound effects, and it had caused Matt quite the headache when he did. But he loved him, so he never told him. He liked to compliment his singing to spare his feelings, but his rendition of the musical, the Foggy Nelson one-man show was not something he wanted to actively listen in on for a second time (and still he did because listening to him put his entire soul into every ballad was oddly refreshing, even to his sensitive ears).

With Eliza though, he knew that her voice already soothing enough to ease his nerves in dire situations. She had a nice voice, one he liked listening to. Every time she hummed Chasing Cars when she was nervous, he got a small glimpse into what her singing voice would sound like and while it was nowhere near trained, she sounded surprisingly good.

So he stayed awake while she sang along under her breath, too caught up in her head to remember that not even a whisper or the dampening of sound-canceling headphones could keep him from hearing part of what she heard.

Needless to say, he would listen to her do it all over again. He would take her to a karaoke bar right now and make her compete with Foggy if that was what it would take for her to sing for him. He knew that his friend would be down right away. Eliza, not so much. She hated public speaking - public singing would only be twice as horrible.

“I suppose Lin Manuel-Miranda’s songwriting is one way to learn about history,” he murmured, “but does it teach you anything about law?”

She hit him. Even playfully, her punches packed a certain force that had him flinch upon impact. “Shut up or I’ll rap the entirety of Guns And Ships in a very bad French accent right into your ear,” she said.

He snorted. “No, thank you.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Matt happily sat up against the headboard, stroking the hair from her face - hair which he now knew the color of. He remembered every last highlight, the way the sun fell on the strands, and showed her in an entirely different light. He imagined her lips curling up again, her beautiful smile reaching his heart in streaks of yellow, warm like the sun. Her eyes probably eyed him up and down, her pupils blown from the change of light in the bedroom, and the color around it competing with her smile for a spot in the sun. He could feel the heat under her skin, the blood rushing to her cheeks, and he could see her face before his inner eye, skin colonized by a soft, red flush from the cold of the open window and the heat of him underneath her.

Eliza pecked his forehead, “But I suppose you can be forgiven.”

Matt’s cheeks flushed when she pulled away, the blood rushing to his head only because he realized he had been fantasizing about her in the middle of their conversation and the tune of her heartbeat told him that she knew.

“Oh, so it’s a not guilty verdict then?” he asked.

“Yes, I believe so. Your innocence was proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“Well, give my thanks to the jury if you happen to see them.”

“You can thank them yourself. They’re right here.”

“Where?”

She pursed her lips. “Right here. You gotta bow down a bit.”

“Like this?” He leaned forward.

“A bit further.”

He lowered his head. “Here?”

“You’re still missing some distance there, counselor.”

“Oh, I see,” Matt pinched her chin between his thumb and index finger, “I think I found them,” he said, and then, finally, he kissed her.

Eliza wrapped her arms around his neck with the most content sigh. His hand came to rest around her neck, the perfect necklace, and he didn’t have to pay for expensive jewelry for her to be happy with it. Their lips moved lazily against each other. There was no fight for dominance, no rush, only the two of them molded together like marble, not quite the same contrasts blending - one was darker than the other; one was the sun, the other the moon, black and white - but they still came in one piece.

He licked over her bottom lip, sucking the flesh into his mouth. She gasped softly, allowing his tongue to enter, though not without testing the waters first, waiting for her to open up far enough so he could swallow every possible breath that came from her throat. With the way their noses brushed together, oxygen became a rarity for their lungs, fighting to be granted at least some air with the other pressing so tightly against them.

The fact that Matt navigated his world through touch was a well-known fact. It was the main source of being able to paint a mental picture of his surroundings. The enhancement of his other senses added to that, of course, but the touch was the sense he relied most upon. He liked to touch what was his, showed his affection through lingering touches, held onto his friends any chance he got to keep them from leaving his side, and reveled in the feel of soft fabrics against his sensitive skin, giving the constant overstimulation a break.

At the same time, he experienced the affection of others much deeper than the ordinary human being. When she touched him, his skin felt on fire, and goosebumps adorned everywhere she touched. Every last spot sparked with electricity, sending signals to his brain, and she tickled just the right centers to cause imminent pleasure. The pleasure wasn’t often sexual. A mere release of endorphins and oxytocin relaxed his muscles and calmed him, soothing the constant hammering that caused his head to spin.

Arousal was the strongest sensation of all he could feel because it wasn’t just his sex that craved attention, it was all of him. Her touch could bring him to the edge of orgasm just by rubbing over his arms, his legs, even his hair, and while it was exhaustion to get so easily riled up, she made it worth it. He didn’t have to hold back. She refused to let him.

Her body moved to the rhythm of his kisses. adjusting ever so slightly to sit more comfortably in his lap. By then he could only count the seconds before she would feel the effect of her wriggling. The drug-like high his lips caused had her mind floating somewhere else. She only realized what was happening when he broke the kiss, breathing heavily, and he stilled her hips with a firm grip.

“Don’t,” he warned.

Eliza licked her lip, brows furrowing at his request. “What?” she said.

“Don’t-” Matt swallowed, “Don’t move.” The please he added ran silent.

“What are you talking about- oh.” She shifted, directing her eyes downward, and then she stilled, feeling the hard outline of his cock pressing against her panties. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. “Oops?”

He must have gotten turned on pretty early, considering she could feel the wet patch of pre-cum soaking through both of their underwear and coating her folds. Except that she didn’t have any sex drive left in her. Even the sight of him naked didn’t have her clenching like it usually did. Though as she inspected his closed eyes, the blush on his cheeks, and the sight of his cock straining against the waistband of his underwear, she couldn’t help but feel a little proud of herself.

Matt’s fingers dug into her hips. He cleared his throat, daring to open his eyes again. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I wasn’t trying- I know you’re not- God, I’m sorry. That usually doesn’t happen. I’m not a fucking teenager anymore.”

She placed a finger on his lips. “Don’t talk,” she shushed him. “It’s okay.”

“I don’t- I mean, we don’t have to- I know you’re not feeling the same right now. I just need a moment to focus, to get the, uh, blood back into my head, but your wriggling isn’t helping. So please, Liz, stop moving.”

“I have a better idea.”

He did it for her all the time. The least she could do was return the favor - she wanted to put him first because he often came to short in life, always the savior, always the catholic, and always eager to serve and give pleasure rather than take it. He would never ask her to do it. He liked to swallow his needs to treat her own. More often than not they took down the road of his desires anyway but not because he asked but because it just happened. He got off, and he enjoyed it, but even Matt Murdock had needs that needed to be articulated more. He was clear about what he didn’t want, but when it came to asking for an act of service directed at him? He wasn’t going to do that without a little push.

Determined to make him cum first for once, Eliza took his hands and put them on the front of his dress shirt she wore. The buttons felt cold under his fingertips as he traced them, frowning, waiting for her to tell him what her mission was.

She didn’t want to have sex, but she would gladly go down on him. She would do everything it took to make him come undone for her. He could touch her however he wanted, as long as it brought him pleasure. He just didn’t seem to get the gist yet, too caught up in his head and embarrassment to make the connection.

She sighed wearily. Stubborn as ever, she thought. “Undress me,” she told him.

“Sweetheart, you’re not even…” he trailed off to play with the slightly oversize fabric again.

He wondered which one she wore. Was it a blue or a white one? He had a red one too, that much he knew because Foggy made him buy it after they graduated. He doubted she would choose the most expensive though, probably one he wore the past couple of days, one of the more casual shirts.

His cock twitched, painfully hard and rubbed against the silk of his boxers when she rolled her hips against his just enough to make him feel something.

“You’re right,” Eliza said, “I’m not at all horny right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be. I told you, it’s okay. I’d be glad to help you. Now,” she forced his hands away from her abdomen and onto her breasts, “Undress me.” Her voice lowered and she grew more demanding.

Matt gnawed on his bottom lip. Fuck. She was something else when she was determined to get what she wanted, more than willing to take control to let him lose it.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. However, he had already opened the first button by the time he finished talking. Her scent hit him stronger, his body wash and her perfume mixed with the freshly brewed coffee in the kitchen that had probably gone cold.

She shushed him. “I want to.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Matthew.”

The next button plopped open and he reached inside, brushing his hand over her soft nipples. Why that turned him on as if she did the same thing to him, he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was voodoo, but he knew better than to complain. The heavy feeling of her breasts in his hand, the soft flesh tender and perfectly squeezable, had him groan.

“You want to kiss them?” she asked. If it hadn’t been for the context, he would have called her adorable, almost, the way she slurred her words to make him feel more comfortable.

Eliza guided his head toward her cleavage when he gave a faint nod, too turned on to answer. Once close enough, he grabbed both boobs tightly and buried his head between them. What it would feel like to squeeze them to make a tighter entrance and thrust his cock between them, feeling them bounce as he brought himself to orgasm all over her beautiful chest, her nipples perky and coated in his cum?

Fuck. He made himself even harder just from the mental image, the faint idea of the feeling settling in. He wanted nothing more than to fuck her tits, but that was something he had reserved for another time.

She let him suck several hickeys into her skin up until the point he was satisfied and she could pry him away from her boobs, eyes wide with curiosity as she stared into his hooded ones. “Tell me what you want,” she told him.

“I- n’ugh!”

She licked a long strip over his neck.

“I don’t know…” he sighed.

“Do you want me to suck you off,” she offered, “Stroke your cock,” her hand slipped lower, over his straining abs and his boxers, avoiding his erection for now and instead brushing his upper thigh, “Or do you want me to grind on you until you cum?” she finished, eyeing him for any signs of distress.

Matt fisted the sheets, nostrils flared, while the other hand remained on her hip. She cradled his face, scratched his scalp, and found his most sensitive spot, before sucking a purple mark into the pale skin of his chest. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, leaving behind a ghastly white underneath the full blackness of his lashes.

Eliza peeked up at him and the sight was truly victorious. The usually so strong, put-together, and sturdy Matt Murdock looked absolutely wrecked with his hair disheveled, lips swollen and his mouth hung open, the prospect of her suggestions driving him insane.

“Talk to me, my love,” she purred, licking over the hickey she left and adding another right underneath it. “What do you want me to do?”

He whimpered, not wanting to say it, even though he knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted her to do all the things she suggested until he was shaking from the sheer pain of overstimulation, his cock red and swollen and exhausted from the orgasms she would pull from him. It was a dark fantasy, something he couldn’t ask of her. Inflicting pain on him until he came while she sat by and watched - it was a scene meant to be played under different circumstances.

“I suppose I could just keep kissing you. That could make you cum, right?” she said. “I wouldn’t even have to touch you for that to happen. I mean, you’re already so painfully hard, you even wet my underwear like a desperate little boy who can’t even tell me that he wants to have his dick sucked. And here I was, foolishly thinking you were such a strong, big boy when you are actually just as much of a whore as I am, but too much of a proud brat to admit just how submissive to my control your little pet brain is.”

She stopped kissing him, realizing what had just passed her lips, and she pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, God,” she stammered, “I’m so sorry, that wasn’t… I have no idea where that came from.”

This was, for the lack of a better word, outright filthy. And the worst part was that Eliza liked being in this position, finally in control and able to make him feel all the things he made her feel. She wanted to give back, and she wanted him to follow her needs.

The more surprised she was at his reaction. Matt swallowed hard, his muscles flexing and then he moaned loudly. Louder than he ever had before. His head writhed against the pillow. He was embarrassed - embarrassed that this turned him on so much, his cock bumped her cunt with a desperate thrust. She held his hips down, still staring at him.

How did they go from a tickling fight to this?

He barely choked out, “Again.”

And she raised her eyebrows even further. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Do that again. Say it. Fuck!” He was completely at her mercy now. “Please, sweetheart. Keep talking to me like that.”

Finally.

“Wow,” she jumped back into the condescending tone as if it were her second nature. “Are you really that desperate to be fucked?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Is that what you want? My mouth around your cock?”

“Yeah, I want it. I need your mouth. Fuck, I just… I need to cum so bad, baby. So, so bad.”

“Wasn’t so hard now, was it? Asking for what you want like a good boy.”

“Oh.”

“Of course, that would get you twitching. Me calling you a good boy. Is that what you want? Does my little whore want to be called a good boy while I go down on him?”

His back arched off the bed and she wasn’t even far enough to touch him yet. “Huh, pet, tell me. Do you want to be my good boy and cum in my mouth?” she asked.

“I already told you,” he whined.

“Tell me again.”

“Sweetheart…”

“Matthew,” Eliza retorted his name like sweet poison on her tongue and acid on his skin.

He hissed when she finally pulled down his underwear enough to free his aching cock. Matt was done for the second the cold air hit the mushroom tip. His body twitched. Her hands felt like thousand tiny needles. She scratched at his thighs, her mouth hovering above his crotch, but she didn’t touch him where he needed her most.

He wanted to curse her, but his voice betrayed him. “Please,” he whimpered.

Fuck. Perhaps that was enough to turn her on, after all. It sure filled her being with a sense of superiority, and that was quite attractive.

“Sweetheart, please,” he tried again, “Let me fuck your mouth.”

She clicked her tongue. “Tsk, that is not how this is gonna go.”

“I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?”

“Yes, anything for you. I just need you to touch me. Tell me what I have to do.” His eyes trailed aimlessly over the ceiling. “Suck me off. Take my dick into your mouth. Do something, please. I just want to be inside of you. I want to feel you. Don’t make me wait any longer.”

“God, Matthew, I love it when you beg.”

“Please.”

“Yeah, keep those pleas coming until you cum,” she said. “That’s what you can do while I make sure you get the attention only good boys deserve.”

Licking up the base of him, she traced the protruding veins with her tongue. They pulsated with need. The tip of his cock was weeping, leaving traces of his impending release on his stomach. She licked the pre-cum off his sweaty skin, then returned to paying close attention to every outline of his cock. He was a whimpering mess, grabbing the sheets, the pillows, and the headboard, trying to keep his arms up. He wanted nothing more than to fuck into her mouth until he was coming and she was choking, but she had such a hold on him, he felt almost weak, restrained by her words and arms and that mouth of hers that knew just what to do.

“You are so good at that,” he breathed. “Please, just take it in your mouth. Suck me off, baby.”

She suckled at his tip, blinking up at him all innocently.

“Fuck! Move.”

Suddenly, her mouth was gone and he felt her eyes on him, disappointed and exasperated. “I don’t like that tone,” Eliza told him, almost like a teacher condescending to her misbehaving student, but not quite ready to inflict punishment just yet. “You can be nicer than that, can’t you? After all, I’m on my knees for you,” she said. “You can show me at least some gratitude, baby.”

Her hand replaced the touch of her mouth. She moved up and down his shaft, stroking her thumb over his slit, collecting even more pre-cum and using it as lube to move faster.

His hips bucked. She stopped, squeezing a little harder and he moaned, high-pitched and desperate. “Don’t fight against me, or you won’t get to cum at all.”

“I can’t,” Matt grunted, “it’s too much. I need more. I- I need you to move, now.”

“What do you say?”

“Please! Take my cock in your mouth, please.”

“Good boy,” she said. “You know what to say if it gets too much.” Her voice took a slightly softer tinge, though it didn’t last for long - only seconds after, she sank down on him in one go, ignoring her gag reflex as she took his full length into her mouth until he hit the back of her throat, thick, swollen, and salty on her tongue, pulsating with need and desperation, his orgasm only moments away. He was that sensitive.

Her throat kept him warm for several seconds. She didn’t move and the grasp she had on his hips and thighs prevented him from bucking up into her mouth. Eliza warned him with a simple look that if he broke free, she would stop. He felt her gaze burning through him. Matt had no choice but not to comply if he wanted to finish.

He licked his lip. “Please,” he exhaled. “Just like that, sweetie. I’m so close.”

She smiled smugly, having him right where she wanted him.

Fondling his balls, she could already feel him tense under her touch, and when she returned to suck at his tip, paired with the constant motion of her hand jerking him up and down, and the other squeezing his balls, his toes curled and he came with new intensity.

Eliza wasn’t prepared for the extent of his orgasm. She took him in fully, gagging at the size and the flush of liquid down her throat. Matt grabbed her hair, not to push her down but rather to pull her off. His cum spurted over her chest, running down her sternum and onto her breasts. The liquid was hot and sticky; she looked at the white now coating her skin and she sighed. His cum looked so good on her skin, she wished she could show him.

She swallowed the remains of his release in her mouth, then ran her finger through the thick, white cum on her chest and licked her fingers clean too, making sure to make as much obscene noise with her tongue and lips as possible, all just so he could hear what he had done.

Matt winced. His body laid slack against the mattress, chest heaving, and with his eyes closed – he looked so done, so messy. She smiled softly yet proudly at the picture he offered. The thought of taking a picture while he was still blissed out poked her. She pushed it down. He wouldn’t appreciate his nudes being taken, surely, especially since he couldn’t enjoy the same liberty. Although it sounded exciting to take his naked frame with her everywhere she went, ruined, covered in cum, and he was still begging for her, even with his mind rendered useless. He was submissive to her.

Wiping her mouth, she dared to crawl back up. She touched his face. Upon that, he flinched and she pulled back. “No touching?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Is there something you need?”

“Water,” he pleaded.

“Okay. Hold on.” Eliza reached beside herself for the bottle she always kept on the floor of her bedside. She opened the cap and handed it to him.

Matt finished most of the bottle greedily, then offered it to her. He nodded toward her lips and the cum on her chest. She totally forgot how messy she looked herself, and how much of him coated her taste buds. The taste was overwhelming, drying on her gums and lips.

She took the rest of the water and drank it, shooting him a thankful smile. With his dress shirt, she wiped at the cum around her nipples.

Only when his breathing had slowed, did Matt trust his voice again enough to form a logical sentence. “Thank you for doing this,” he said.

“You don’t have to thank me,” she resisted the urge to run a hand through his messy hair, “I told you, I wanted to do this. You deserve to be taken care of too, you know. You don’t have to worry about me all the time. I’m a grown woman,” Eliza said, “And you’d know if I was lying.”

“I know.” He closed his eyes. “I just feel bad that you didn’t… you know, cum. You probably didn’t even enjoy it.”

She propped her head up on her elbow, smiling at him, and he turned his head in her direction. “I don’t need to finish all the time, Matt. I enjoyed myself, believe me. It felt good to see you like this for a change. Made me forget about everything else.”

“You-” he swallowed, blushing once again. “The things you said…” She expected him to tell her he didn’t like it or that she did a bad job, perhaps, but he took her off guard with his actual answer. “When did you become so dirty?” Matt asked.

She broke into a rather flustered laughing fit. “Oh, my God!” She hid behind her hands. “I don’t know. The words just slipped out.”

“Listen, I’m not complaining, but that took me by surprise.”

“Trust me, I didn’t know I had it in myself either.”

He chuckled. “Let’s do it again,” he said.

Eliza stuttered. “Like, right now?”

“No! Not right now, but someday. Soon, maybe.”

“Okay, I’m down.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you are. There are also some thing I want to try with you-“

“Yes!” Her eyes mit up. “God, yes!”

He chuckled. “You don’t even know what I was gonna say,” he teased.

“If you were gonna tell me that you want to try out some BDSM stuff with me, I know exactly what you wanted to say,” she said.

“Well…” it was what he planned to say.

The excitement in her voice told him all he needed to know, silent confirmation that she was more than down to try.

“My answer is yes.”

“If that’s so, we have an agreement.”

“Hm-hm. We do. Until then…”

Matt recognized the sound of her voice. She left the unsaid hanging in the room, waiting for him to pick up on it and piece together the hints she gave, which were barely there but somehow he knew. He always knew what she was talking about without having to say anything.

He let the thoughts pass through the many systems in his brain, contemplating, weighing pros and cons, and then he listened to her steady heartbeat some more.

“We have to go to work, don’t we?” he said. His voice was soft, a gentle caress in the sex-scented bedroom.

Eliza smiled at him. “Yeah,” she said, “We have to. We can’t stay in bed all day.”

“Okay. You’re right.” He sat up, removing the blanket from his body completely, and wrapping her up instead. Gently, he nuzzled his nose into her hair. “I love you,” he said between two kisses to her scalp.

She hummed in response, eyes fluttering close. “Love you too.”

“I’m just gonna take a shower real quick. Wanna join me?”

“Mh-hm.” She took the hand he offered her, wriggling her legs out of the tangled sheets.

He picked her up before she could make her way to the bathroom. Eliza had gotten used to his antics. He liked to carry her. It was something she wouldn’t complain about.

“Did you take your meds?” he asked her then.

She gave a small nod. “All three of them.” Her heartbeat told the truth.

Matt remained satisfied with the answer, “Good girl.”

“Hey,” upon seeing the worry on his face when he set her down in the comfort of the small shower stall, she told him, “We’re gonna be okay.”

He sighed, eyes closing as she roamed his bare chest for something to hold onto, imprinting the way he felt into her brain. As if she hadn’t done that enough already, there would always be something that she missed and she wanted to make sure she got all of him.

“I know,” he said. “But as long as I’m alive, I’m always going to worry about you.”

They shared a kiss. She smiled into it, thankful and overall, finally happy.

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she concluded.

Matt chuckled as he felt the stickiness of her chest slowly subside under the hot water. He used the sponge and some of his body wash to gently brush over her breasts. “C’mon, let’s get all this cum off your chest…”

“Whatever you say, baby girl.”

He stopped. “WHAT?” his voice echoed off the shower walls before he burst out laughing. “What the fuck did you just call me?”

“Baby girl,” she shrugged. “I mean, you’re baby girl material. I found it fitting.”

“Oh, my God. This is awful,” he wheezed. “Don’t ever call me that again!”

“Sure thing, counselor.”

Matt cocked an eyebrow. He purred at the honorific, “Now that is something I can get down with.”

“But baby girl isn’t?” Eliza challenged.

“Never in a million years.”

“Bummer.”

“Where’d you even get that?”

“I have absolutely no idea. The words were just put in my mouth…”

“Well, try to think before you speak next time.” He pinched her side. “I don’t want to hear you call me that ever again.”

She giggled. “Alright, counselor. Whatever you want, you get.”

Her happy ending was right there. There was seemingly nothing she had to worry about anymore. And if she tried hard enough, which she planned to do, she was going to be okay, and all the pain would have been worth it in the end.

Good things come to those who wait, right?

And Eliza tried hard to make it all worthwhile.

#matt murdock #foreigner's god #matt murdock x female!oc #daredevil #matt murdock imagines #marvel #matt murdock angst #matt murdock smut #matt murdock fluff #hurt/comfort #matt murdock needs a hug #and he gets one #matt murdock x oc #foggy nelson #daredevil fic #matt murdock fic #miza

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farfromstrange · 1 year

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Foreigner's God | m.m

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Matt Murdock x avenger!OFC

Chapter thirty-four: Foreigner's God

Summary: Eliza reaches her breaking point when Fury reveals some truths to her and she snaps, pushing everyone that’s left away. She returns to old patterns of self-destructive behavior and starts to drown in her depression. Thankfully, Nick Fury isn’t all heartless. She’s forced to face her demons and realizes something crucial in the process. Maybe it’s not too late to fix what she broke.

Warnings: ANGST, blood, mentions of injury, drug use, relapse, fighting, mental illness, therapy, allusions to sexual assault, just all the warnings, allusions to smut, (shoutout to @serenitroseyy for sending me that one post about Charlie’s arms), BUT we have fluff at the end

a/n: If you make it through this chapter, there is a New Year’s surprise waiting for you at the end; all the pain will have been worth it. I don’t really know, this is very self-indulgent and I have zero regrets.

I wish you all an amazing New Year’s Eve tonight! Don’t drink too much, get yourself someone to kiss or hug or just to dance with, and celebrate that this shitty year is over (and hope that the next will be better). Thank you all for making the last quarter of 2022 so great for me, and I can’t wait to see what 2023 has in store for me/us! I can’t wait to continue this story! Have a great night and I’ll see you next year!!

Goodbye, Matthew.

Those two words marked the beginning of a very dark time. Mental illness doesn’t excuse toxic behavior, only offers an explanation. So there was no excuse for what Eliza had done. She hurt him in ways she never fathomed possible, and the parts of her that cared got swallowed by the eight-legged monster living inside her head.

She didn’t even tell her friends that she chose to be discharged. Entering her room, she dropped the duffel bag on the closest chair and took in her surroundings. She had her own bathroom, there was a gigantic window pointing out in the direction of the front lawn, a queen-size bed, a flatscreen, and even her own desk. Though she headed straight for the bed, giving in to her weak knees, and she curled up into a ball on the right side of the mattress.

There was a hammering on her door. “Eliza, open up!” Natasha called out.

She closed her eyes, trying to tune out her voice.

“We’re worried about you,” said Clint. Where had he come from?

Eliza could hear them whispering on the other side. They had all come to change her mind. Even Steve and Sam were there. It had all come down to an intervention, and she refused to let them talk down on her. She made her decision, they didn’t have any power over that.

“You know you can talk to us about anything, right?” Steve asked this time.

She simply groaned, trapping her head between the edges of her pillow. The fabric was supposed to swallow the sounds. When her friends didn’t get an answer, they gave up. She could hear them walking away, and she sighed in relief.

Though it only took another five minutes for someone else to speak up. “I’ve been where you are,” Sam said. “I’ve started shutting people out too after I came back from the war. It wasn’t pretty. Everyone always seemed to know better, and they tried to make me do things I didn’t want to do, so I pushed them away.”

Except she hadn’t been to war. She was taken by Hydra. The things that kept her up at night happened at her hand, not because she enlisted in the war. He couldn’t possibly compare their situations.

“Let me tell you this though, pushing people away doesn’t make this hole in your chest go away. Talking about it does. It’s a bit of a slippery slope, but essentially, the only way to get over PTSD is to openly talk to someone about it. And you’ve been through hell and back, you deserve to rest the most out of all of us. It’s okay for you to suffer and to want peace, but don’t push the people who love you away just because that tiny voice inside of your head keeps telling you to.”

Sam jolted in surprise when the door opened. Eliza glared straight at him, the girl he had met before entirely gone. There was not a single emotion left in her fiery eyes.

“I came here because I wanted to be alone,” she snapped, “not to be lectured by a wannabe therapist. If I wanted to go to a support group, I would have already. So take your know-it-all attitude and piss off before I call someone to remove you from my room!”

“Eliza, I-”

The wood almost broke his nose when the door slammed in his face.

She returned to her previous position on the bed. Her eyes switched to the bedside table. She wasn’t proud of it. She thought she was better, she thought she was stronger. It didn’t affect her all that much, at least not at the moment. Though after she got rid of all the tubes and IVs, she started to feel the familiar tingling in her fingertips. A hunger inside of her that didn’t seem satisfied, no matter what she did. She wasn’t hungry for sustenance. She was hungry for something else entirely.

Opioids work by interacting with the opioid receptors in your cells. When they get into your bloodstream and attach to such receptors in your brain, they muffle pain and boost feelings of pleasure. The pain relief is not that dangerous if used correctly and as prescribed. The body almost instantly responds.

When you focus on the pleasure though, sometimes it happens that the brain can’t get enough of the release, and that’s where opioids get dangerous because once you feel such pleasure, it’s hard to stop. Not when it shuts your brain down so good, you’re flying where the universe doesn’t exist. You’re in your own little world, completely numb to the outside world, and in a state of constant bliss. It’s better than sex. For a moment, you can just float and don’t have to think about anything else. Your brain is enveloped in cotton, your muscles are completely relaxed and you find yourself staring down from cloud nine, above everyone else.

That’s why a lot of doctors have stopped prescribing opioids and started using new methods of pain relief. Opioids such as Oxycodone often offer a window into the world of other drugs, especially heroin. What was once used to treat your pain suddenly turns into your only source of pleasure, and once you’re in it, those addictive drugs won’t let you go any more, no matter how hard you try. Not to mention the alcoholism that often comes with drug addiction, but not always. Mixing those two substances makes for a very toxic cocktail that should not be explored.

Eliza should have known better. Agreeing with Sophie’s treatment plan had been a bad idea. It was only going to be a small dose, she had said. There was nothing to worry about. Just until her body was strong enough to heal on its own and she could get some sleep. She had major surgery, in her case the use of morphine was more than valid, but with her history, it had been a bad idea to even suggest the idea. And she was foolish enough to agree to it.

She locked the door twice. No one should be able to come in. The shame would kick in soon enough.

As she sat on the bed now, she looked at the clear liquid inside the small bottle. In a weak moment, she had stolen it, and she already regretted that decision. Now that she had it in her hand, the temptation grew in size. She was fragile enough already. The morphine would only drag her down and slow down her recovery process. Then why couldn’t she put it down?

Addiction is a fickle thing.

They could all go to hell. Her friends, her so-called family, they could all suck it. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone, she only needed to get better and then leave them behind for good.

Eliza needed to regain her strength as soon as possible or she would never escape the shackles they put on her by taking her back to SHIELD. She refused to succumb to a life of control, with little to no autonomy. She was sick and tired of being pushed around. She would pack her stuff once this was over and start anew somewhere. Someplace no one would find her, preferably. Or she would fight to the death, she hadn’t decided yet. Either way, she would finally get rid of everything that kept her tied down. She didn’t need anyone’s help, especially not those who liked to belittle her because they claimed it to be their right as her family.

She didn’t need a family. Her parents were dead. No one could replace what she had lost and never gotten when her mother died. If she was cursed, she would stand by the truth. She would accept who she was, even if it meant hurting the people around her. She couldn’t have cared less.

Instead of sleeping, she walked laps around her room until she collapsed on her bed. The next morning, she jumped head-first into training. Muscle-building exercises paired with slow walks on the treadmill; she worked until her legs were shaking and she had to take a break because her incision site started to set itself on fire. When her trainer suggested they should call it a day, she burst his bubble.

“I can keep going,” she insisted.

By the end of the first day, she was almost entirely stable on her feet. The wound had progressed healing, Sophie told her, and chances that her stitches would be removed soon were high.

She only trained harder from then on.

Against her trainer’s recommendation, she snuck into the ring one night. With bandaged hands, she started beating the punching bag raw. The only thing she wasn’t allowed to do was strain her torso too much. She felt better though, so she decided she had been patient long enough.

The first few hits went over well. She grew more confident, putting more force behind her punches. The leather of the bag burned perfectly against her wrapped skin. The sharp pressure against her knuckles was all she could focus on. She wanted more of that sweet pain. It managed to distract her from everything else, and the world stopped spinning for just a minute.

She barely felt the blood that started to drench the bandages or the way the metal chain attached to the bag squeaked louder with every hit. The first few cracks in the ceiling had already formed. Eliza was trapped in a haze, only focused on hitting her target, imagining Viktor’s face. All she could see was him and the man she killed, then Ivan and his gun, and her mind instantly went back to Viktor. The pictures wouldn’t stop flashing. Her mother, her father, Hydra, everything followed in a series of short impulses.

The chain broke apart, some of the drywall following suit as the punching bag soared across the room and hit the ground. She cried out, the pain cutting her abdomen apart once more.

She bowed over, holding the bandage around her bare stomach. A red stain had formed, matching the blood covering her knuckles. She looked down at her covered hands, and her mind flashed back to the same hallway in the White Room as she cut the stranger’s throat. The broken knuckles reminded her of her failed attempt to kill Viktor, and seeing her abdomen bleed only pushed the near-death experience to the front lines.

“What did that bag ever do to you?” the female voice piped up behind her.

She grunted, applying more pressure to the wound to get the bleeding and the heavy pulsating to stop.

Maria stepped around the corner, eyeing her exhausted frame. “You’re bleeding,” she said and pointed to the blood-soaked bandage. Perhaps it looked worse than it was. “I’m not sure you’re supposed to even be in here.”

“What do you want?” Eliza asked through gritted teeth. “Did Fury send you? Because I don’t want to talk to him.”

“I actually just came because Natasha told me that you haven’t come to see them in two days, and every time they tried to make advances, you pushed them away.”

“Oh great, she’s snitching on me now.”

“And Matt left.”

“Yeah, he did that. So what? He’s a grown man. He can do whatever he wants.” Her breath came short and labored. Sweat ran down her face, covering her neck in a thin layer. She wiped over the wet skin with her bloody hands, leaving a trail behind.

Maria walked over to clean up the punching bag, then returned to Eliza who had backed up into the wall and leaned against it. She could barely keep herself upright.

“I think you might have popped some of your stitches,” she stated.

“Happens,” Eliza said.

“How about a deal?”

She raised her eyebrows. “A deal? What deal?”

“You get that wound checked out and I will convince Doctor Michaels to allow me to train you from here on. I will get you back on your feet in just a couple of days,” she said.

“I feel like there’s a catch somewhere in there.”

Maria chuckled. “I do have a condition of my own. Something you can do for me.”

“Let me guess,” she asked, “Fury wants to see me?”

“Yeah.”

“That was so predictable. The answer is no.”

“Think about it. No more physical therapy.” The offer sounded lucrative, she had to admit. “You’ll improve your combat skills and heal much faster if you enjoy what you’re doing. And, you know, I will let you take out your anger on as many punching bags as you want.”

“It’s just one conversation?” Eliza questioned as she thought about it. “And then you’ll train me?”

“He just wants to talk,” she said.

She wished she had something to punch into. “Fuck it,” she grumbled to herself. “We have a deal.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, I’m in. Congratulations! You won’t lose your job just yet. Then again, you can always crawl back to Tony if being a double agent for SHIELD doesn’t work out.”

Maria scoffed, and the relieved glint in her eyes turned into a mischievous one. “I’m not gonna go easy on you, you realize that, right?”

Eliza matched her smirk. “I’m counting on it,” she said.

She knocked on the door of the conference room early in the morning.

Fury stood at the huge window, looking out at the field of grass before the complex. She didn’t wait for his permission to enter, she simply walked in.

She hadn’t been outside for so long, she forgot what nature looked like. The sun stood high in the sky, and the flowers in the garden were blooming.

She pressed a hand to her freshly stitched wound. Sophie had been anything but happy, but Maria talked her out of being admitted again. There was something incredibly convincing about that woman. Perhaps her years of working for SHIELD had turned her into a master manipulator, or her looks did it for her. Either way, Eliza was glad that she settled it for her.

“Nice weather we’re having,” she said, her voice bitter.

Fury chuckled. “I was hoping you’d come,” he answered.

“Hill made a very convincing argument. I didn’t do it for you, I did it for myself. Just so we’re clear.”

He hummed, moving from the window to the conference table only momentarily to pick up the paper cup. He handed it to her. “Coffee?”

She ground her teeth. He wasn’t playing fair. She took him up on his offer, more than glad to taste the sweet yet bitter liquid on her tongue again. The cappuccino was sweet enough to cause her diabetes, her favorite way to drink it.

“So, what’s this blackmail about?” she asked. “What could be so important that you asked me here?”

He surprised her when he said, “I’m glad you’re okay.” It was as much sentiment as he was capable of.

She gasped in surprise. “Is that affection that I sense?”

“You know, the surgeons were ready to give up on you. After thirty minutes, they said, the brain would suffer significant damage. Still, I told them not to lose you because I- we didn’t want to lose you just yet. I gambled. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it, turn into a vegetable, but it worked. You’re alive.”

“Hm, didn’t see that coming,” she said, but she had been confronted with worse truths.

If she had died, a lot of things could have been prevented, but Fury made it sound like he wanted her to survive (for whatever reason) and she couldn’t deny that it was nice to hear he cared enough to intervene. She couldn’t be mad at him for that, only for putting her on radio silence for so long, she believed he wasn’t exactly real.

Eliza took another sip from her coffee. “As surprised as I am to hear that, I’ll take it. You saved my life. Thank you, I suppose that’s the correct answer.”

“The correct answer?” He raised his one good eyebrow.

“Do I get extra points if I act as if I care? Is that, like, a thing now?”

“No, not at all.” He was the king of not caring or pretending to, at least. “I’m just surprised. What happened to you?”

“Life,” she stated. “Or, technically, it was death and then life because I survived.”

“You wanted me to let you die?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Well, I didn’t ask you here to discuss the drama you caused,” he said. Finally, the careless Fury was back. Always focused on one thing only, work.

He pulled a file from the inside of his leather coat. She took it. Her relationship with strange files wasn’t exactly a great one.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“It’s the official report on the Hydra situation,” he told her. “I thought you’d like to know that we destroyed all that was left. We apprehended Viktor and your fugitive status has officially been erased. You’re not gonna have to stand trial when you get out of here.”

“That’s the least you could do.”

“Read it.”

“I know what happened. Natasha told me.”

“I’m not sure she told you everything. Romanoff likes to protect you. I don’t. I strongly believe you’re more than capable of dealing with bad news yourself. You’re not a child anymore.”

He was right. She wanted to be mad at him, but it was hard to hate him when he said things that made her feel better. He understood, which was something her life lacked for the past couple of days; people who understood where she was coming from, or what she wanted.

She didn’t want to be wrapped in a bubble and protected. It was the last thing she needed. She swore she wouldn’t allow herself to be lied to anymore. If what Nick suggested was true, Natasha had lied to her again, and the truth was in the file. The situation seemed all too familiar, reigniting the endless rage in her stomach.

She moved over to the conference table, placing the file down on the tabletop. Eliza opened it, not sure what to expect. The pictures didn’t matter, and neither did the report on how they burned the place to the ground. That much, she was told.

What she wasn’t told, however, was that there had been someone else present in the compound at the time, and he was responsible for the first set of explosions. It was sorted in Natasha’s report of events.

She growled. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Is this real?” She looked at Fury.

“We found the devices he used in the ashes. He planned to get you out of there. He was ready to destroy Hydra from the inside, and I suppose he succeeded. We found an unidentified set of remains in the ruins,” he said.

Eliza flipped the page. “DNA is a match.”

“Your father died to help you take down Hydra.”

“How did he even get out in the first place?”

“The lockdown gave him a short window to break out. He came prepared. I believe he knew you’d pull something like this, but played along anyway.”

His brutal honesty became too much to bear.

She swooped the file off the table, slapping her hands down. “I knew it,” she muttered.

“If we had known, we would have pulled him out of there, but after what Natasha told me…” Fury sighed. “He chose to die. He would’ve done anything to save your life. That’s why I told them to save you. His attempts would’ve been for nothing if you’d died.”

“No,” Eliza snapped around to face him, “you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to play the good guy. You were part of this conspiracy too. You could’ve told me the second I woke up, but you didn’t even bother to see me,” she said. “That’s cowardice right there, and I refuse to be belittled anymore. I’m done! I thought you were my family, but all you’ve done since I came here seven years ago was lie to me about my heritage, my life, my past, and now even the death of the only blood-related family I had left. I can’t do this anymore. Just tell me, does Maria know?”

He shook his head. “And I’m not saying this to protect her. She has no idea,” he said.

“Because she would have told me if she knew?”

“Yes.”

“At least someone with the guts to tell the truth. You know what?” Eliza walked over to the scattered documents. She scrambled them together, put them into the file, and then tore them apart. She ripped them right down the middle, then again at the edges. “Fuck this, and especially fuck you!”

“Eliza, would you just let me explain?”

“There is nothing to explain,” she said. “Maria is going to help me get better and then I’m out of here. I’ve been lied to enough for a lifetime, thank you very much.”

She was delusional to ever think her life would take a turn for the better.

Eliza found Natasha and the others in the lounge. They camped out there most of the time, hoping they’d run into her and get a word in. She usually avoided them, but she’d had enough.

She stormed in, almost kicking down the door. The look in her eyes left no space for speculation. Her thoughts were written all over her face.

Natasha opened her mouth, but she raised her finger. “Whatever you’re about to say, save it,” she said. “I’m not sure what’s true and what’s a lie anymore, so just don’t.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Steve.

“Wow!” She laughed. “All this and you still have the guts to act clueless. That’s remarkable, really. To make me believe you’re in my court and that I can trust you only for you to break that trust time and time again. Especially you,” she turned to Natasha, “I thought you were my sister,” she said.

Natasha gawked at her. “No, I am,” she insisted. “I told you, I would never lie to you again. What’s this about?”

The audacity. Eliza expected her to deny it, but the act they all put on was remarkably pathetic and it made the bomb inside of her explode.

“Are you just in denial or did you really think I wouldn’t find out? Do you think I’m fucking stupid, delusional or perhaps even completely fucked in the head? What is it with you and all this lying to protect me? You think I’m so mentally fucked up that you can’t even tell me the truth about what happened back at the White Room?”

Clint sighed. It was a knowing sigh. He knew too, and he didn’t care to tell her. Steve lowered his head and Sam stared out of the window. Natasha was the only one who met her eye sternly.

“Whatever you think you found out,” she prompted.

Eliza cut her off immediately, “Don’t act all innocent now. It won’t work. I refuse to buy any of the shit you’re trying to sell to me.”

“I’m serious, I can explain if you’d just let me. There is a reason I kept this from you.”

“No. My father was there to help me!” she snapped. “He was there and he knew he was going to die. You saw him, you talked to him, and you told everyone about this but me. He died, Natasha! He was the only parent I had left and he died to help me. He tore them apart from the inside, quite literally, and sacrificed himself in the process. He did that, not me! And you didn’t even think to tell me. I mean, I sold him out. I almost got him killed. The least you could have done is tell me that he made the choice to help me, not hate me. What kind of sister does that? What kind of sister lies to the person she claims to love over and over again, betraying my trust like it means nothing, like I’m just a child who needs protection from the monsters in the closet?”

“Eliza, please… I can explain.”

“You made me believe I was an orphan and when I finally thought that I wasn’t entirely alone in this world, my father died to protect me, and you knew and didn’t even think to tell me. Congratulations, you no longer have to lie about the orphan thing. My parents are all dead. I have no grandparents, so siblings, not even an aunt or an uncle; I have nothing. I’m officially alone.”

“You’re not alone, you never were,” Clint cut in.

“No, I was!” Her voice reverberated in the small room. “I still am! Everyone who’s ever been in my corner has betrayed me. And the one person who’s ever truly loved me left because I told him to. I was never not alone. I grew up alone and it seems like I’m doomed to be alone for the rest of my goddamn life.”

“Eliza,” Steve said, and his tone sounded almost warning.

“Sam,” she said, not even thinking about stopping.

The man turned from the window, his shoulders slack.

“Nice speech you gave me. Was any of it real, when you told me not to push people away while knowing a very vital secret about my life that not even I knew?”

“Now hold on,” he said, “I meant what I said. We were just trying to protect you. I’ve been trying to do what’s right, and I strongly believe that not telling you was the wishes choice. That’s not Natasha’s fault. If anything, you should hate all of us.”

“You’re lucky that I already do hate all of you. And I thought you were my family.”

Natasha scoffed. “But we still are,” she said.

Eliza twirled around, her dead eyes glaring daggers into the woman she no longer recognized. “Am I talking to you, Natasha?” She cocked her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay, listen here, little Miss,” Clint stepped forward, ever the condescending father and he said, “You can be mad at us, but you’re walking on thin ice here. We deserve a little respect for all the shit we had to put up with. We’re older and more experienced than you. You have no right to talk down on us like that.”

She laughed straight in his face. “The shit you had to put up with?” she spat. “That’s funny considering I’m the one who has to constantly put up with your shit. Your lies and your pretenses and everything else you got going on to make me believe my life is one thing when it’s actually another,” she said. “I’m sorry that I was such a burden to you, but I’ve never asked you to care, so it’s kinda your fault we’re in this position. I will not be respectful,” she came dangerously close, “Because you’ve lost all of my respect. Older or not, I don’t have to respect you when I can’t even trust you anymore. And I’m not a kid, so don’t treat me like one of your children.”

“But you are one of my children,” he told her. “That hasn’t changed.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you want all the Christmas gifts back, would that make it easier to get the fucking hint? That means you’re no longer my family. You’re nothing. You’re not my father and you’re not my friend. You’re strangers. I don’t fucking recognize you anymore. In my eyes, all that you are right now is pathetic.”

Natasha stared at her. She wasn’t sure if it was fear in her eyes or if she was just shocked she had turned into this. Whatever this was. Eliza wasn’t sure, exactly, but she didn’t lose another thought about it. Fighting the inevitable was useless anyway.

She gasped softly, “Eliza.”

“Look,” Steve tried his best to keep them from hitting each other, “maybe we should all just calm down before we say things that we don’t mean.”

“I meant every word of what I said,” Eliza retorted.

“You can’t possibly mean all of that,” Sam said.

Clint gritted his teeth. “I think she does.”

"Damn, right I do. And I think it’s best if you pack your things and leave. Who knows when the authorities will start to pick up on your location? And you know, I don’t want to see your faces around here ever again,” she said. “I am done with you, with all of this, and once I’m back on my feet, I will move far away from here. The Eliza you knew is gone and I’m tired of pretending that that’s not the case. If leaving is all it takes to get away from a family that claims to care about me but then continues to lie to me about things that I had every right to know about, I will gladly go into exile for the rest of my life.“

Eliza pushed the door open. Her name was uttered in many different volumes, and she was urged back into the room to talk, to calm down, to have a proper conversation, but she only shut the door in their faces.

There was only one more hurdle to jump over and then she could close this chapter for good.

The pain was all-consuming. It felt as if she was wounded deep inside, something, not even a bandaid could fix. She asked herself if it was her fault. If she brought the world to turn against her. It had to be. People don’t change this fast. She judged her friends to be good people. Herself, that was another story. There was no goodness in her heart, Viktor was right.

There seemed to be only one way to remove this hot knife that cut through her solar plexus.

No one would care.

Back in her room, she reached into the bedside drawer. The bottle came with a small syringe; she wasn’t a complete fool. She tied the makeshift tourniquet just above the crook of her elbow, causing the blue vein to pop. She filled the syringe with only a small dose, enough to do the trick. The thin needle penetrated her skin sharply, reaching into the vein underneath.

Eliza didn’t waste time pushing all the way down, the clear liquid now flooding her bloodstream. Tossing the syringe, tourniquet, and bottle back into the drawer, she fell back on the bed.

Thirty minutes passed by. During that time, she stared at the ceiling. A couple of weeks ago, she would have cursed herself for this decision and run in a panic to the nearest doctor. But she was already so numb, all she could do was succumb to the sweet voice calling out for her. She took the invisible hand, allowing the voice to drag her into dreamland.

As soon as the dose hit, she questioned why she had even stopped in the first place.

The world went quiet. She floated in the safety of the white cloud that carried her into what she supposed was heaven. A paradise of nothing. There was no pain where she ended up, only relief and ecstasy. The pleasure caressed her skin in all the right places. She could breathe again.

She turned her head to the side to find the familiar pair of brown eyes staring into hers. Her lip twitched into a smile. He wasn’t real. She could wave her hand through his body and the particular part would dissolve into smoke.

“This is my bubble,” she whispered.

“It could be ours,” he whispered back.

“You’re not real.”

“I could be.”

“I’m trying to move on, but you’re always there. Why?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

She waved her hand through him one last time, allowing Matt to dissolve and return to her state of mindlessness. Her eyelids dropped. Sleep called for her. She was tired, and her body completely relaxed against the mattress. She couldn’t move. She wanted to stay on this cloud forever.

The stars offered her a blanket and she said yes. The universe lulled her into a deep sleep, one void of dreams and especially, void of nightmares and Matt Murdock. She slept as she had never slept before, completely knocked out while floating in the starry night. Almost like Aladdin had taken her away on his magic carpet and they were singing A Whole New World as a thank you to the universe.

It was her final lullaby.

The hard knocking on her door disrupted her short-lived euphoria. Or, it hadn’t been short-lived. She had been asleep for a good amount of time, hours on end, almost as if she was dead.

Her eyes fluttered open. She regretted not closing the curtains. She already felt the headache coming on.

The hammering grew louder. “Eliza, open your fucking door before I kick it down!” Maria shouted from the other side.

Her eyes fell on the clock. Oh, shit. She had slept for most of the day. It was around one pm. She shot up, scrambling to her feet, ignoring the dizziness or the shaking of her limbs, or the way her mouth had dried. All that mattered was getting Maria off her ass so she wouldn’t call someone to drag her out of her room or do it herself.

She opened the door, staring at the brunette woman with wide eyes. “What?” she snapped.

“Where the hell have you been? We were supposed to meet at eight this morning! I thought you were dead. I even tried to call you.”

“Uh, yeah, I’ve been sleeping. Sorry, I must’ve forgotten to set an alarm.“

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Oh, I’m great,” she lied.

“You look like shit.”

“Then stop looking.”

Her nostrils flared. “Ten minutes,” Maria said. “If you don’t show them, I will drag you back into the hospital myself.”

She closed the door. That was close.

Eliza stormed into the bathroom, emptying her guts in the toilet. Cold shivers rippled through her body. Her fingers had gone numb. She gagged again, releasing another disgusting wave of vomit. She felt better after that, though the pressing need to reach into the drawer again grew with each passing second. Even as she got dressed, her eyes lingered there.

She taped a bandaid over the injection point on her arm. She wasn’t sure how to explain it, but she would find a way. This wasn’t her first rodeo. Perhaps that was why she dealt with it so well, the sudden drop after the high. She was used to it.

As it turned out, Maria was a harsh trainer. She worked Eliza down to the bone. Though whatever she did, it worked. Two days after they started training together, Sophie removed her stitches. The incision site had fully healed, and she was only getting stronger every day.

Maria forced her to do cardio until her legs gave out, and she unleashed her anger on several punching bags until her arms went numb.

When she came home after a particularly hard day though, Fury burst her bubble. He sat on her bed, fiddling with the small bottle who had significantly shrunken in size since she first pulled it out of the drawer.

Her heart dropped to her stomach and she swallowed. “You’re not supposed to be in here,” she said.

“Hill told me she was worried about you,” he ignored her statement. “She said you’ve been lashing out more than usual, you’re constantly late or a no-show and you refuse to talk about why you look like absolute shit all the fucking time, and it’s not because of genetics.”

“Oh, please. Lashing out? I’m only lashing out at the punching bags. And so what, I’m late? Happens to the best of us. Maria has to stop acting like a fucking helicopter mom. It’s getting ridiculous. Can’t get what she wants so she snitches to daddy.” Eliza scoffed. “That woman really has the audacity to act clueless around me and then go behind my back. Why does everyone keep doing that?” she said. “Is there a sign on my face that just begs to be lied to or what is it?”

“Your attitude has reached a point where even Hill wonders what’s wrong with you, and she knows all about attitude.” Fury leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. His eye looked even darker in the dim light of the ceiling lamp. “She also said you’ve lost weight,” he said, “and gained a lot of muscle. You haven’t been eating, or at least that’s what it looks like. Or you’re throwing up everything. You’re pale, shaking and your punches have started to waver…”

“Your point?”

“I had my suspicions,” he stated, shaking the bottle. “I had to find viable proof before I confronted you. That and I wanted to see for myself – your pupils are wider than the fucking moon, don’t even try to talk yourself out of it. You’re fucking high.”

She straightened her shoulders. “That’s just there for symbolism,” Eliza argued. “It means nothing. You can take it away, I don’t care.”

She did care, but she was too proud to admit it. He had no right to invade her privacy like that, and perhaps it was the light causing her pupils to dilate. She told herself she wasn’t high even though she knew better. She knew what she was and sober wouldn’t be a word she would have used to describe herself either.

“Symbolism?” Fury asked.

“Yes.” She went to reach for the bottle. “Symbolism,” she said.

Shooting up had become a routine since she started training. She had to admit, she yelled at Maria more often than not, and the ceiling had taken a toll from the punching bags she destroyed, but she had it under control.

He placed the bottle down on the nightstand. Instead, he offered her a plastic cup.

“If it’s just symbolism, you won’t have a problem with peeing in this cup.”

She frowned. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.”

“I’m not peeing in the cup.”

“Pee. In. The. Cup.”

Eliza groaned loudly. “No,” she insisted.

“You have something to hide?”

“No, I just don’t like being told what to do. I’m not doing a drug test. I’ve got it under control.”

“Like you had it under control three years ago?” he challenged.

“That was different.”

“Was it though?”

She huffed.

“Pee in the cup or I’m taking you back to the hospital.”

“Fine!” She took the cup from him.

He wasn’t going to like the results.

She ignored the obvious signs of withdrawal, the shaking, the throwing up, and the itching of her skin. Instead, she spent every living second in the training room. She convinced Maria to let her work with the holograms. The last time, she never made it further than taking down six of the synthetic men. She planned to break the record.

She needed to kill something, even if it was just a holographic person. The thrill made the ache in her bones more bearable.

Eliza fought the eight men off with just her fists and a stick, one that was about half the size of her. She flipped about the room as if she had never gotten hurt in the first place. Her hits were calculated and directed at the hologram’s jugular. She dodged their weapons and used her own to trap them, before throwing them over her shoulders. The last one was met with the stake right through his heart, and then that was it.

She took them all out in four minutes, but as she knelt on the ground, her chest heaving and sweat coating her entire body, she realized she needed more. If she couldn’t have the one thing she was addicted to, she had to divert her attention to something else. The fight caused her momentary control over her life, and it felt victorious. Having full control over everything around her. The feeling sustained her.

Maria stood on the sidelines, watching her intently. Her lip curled up into a proud smile. “You outdid yourself,” she said.

“That wasn’t good,” Eliza stated.

“You’re right, it was excellent.”

“No, I can do better than that. Run the simulation again.”

“Eliza, you’re done. You’ve reached full capacity, that means you’re back to a hundred percent. You made it.”

“Great, let’s go again. And make it ten this time,” she said. “In fact, give me everything this program has to offer. I’m not stopping until I’ve reached two hundred percent.”

She gave in only because she knew the girl needed it. With a sigh, she reset the simulation, changed the settings, and restarted it.

Eliza managed to win against the holograms two more times before she fell to her knees, completely spent. The lack of nutrition started to catch up to her. She downed an entire water bottle in one big gulp, but it wasn’t enough to improve her circulation.

Maria had long left her when she returned to the training grounds, setting up a new punching bag. Leaning her forehead against the cold leather, she took a deep breath. She was back to full capacity, which meant her body healed successfully. She could move out if she wanted to.

She landed the first hit.

For days, she worked herself to the bone so she could leave. Still, she felt weaker than before she was shot. She felt less worthy. Nothing she did seemed enough. She couldn’t satisfy the monster in her head, no matter what she did, no matter how many times she won. She was still pretty much worthless.

Her fists rained down on the punching bag, soon causing the hook to squeak. Why was she like this? She pushed all of her friends away, pushed Matt away, and she relapsed. She made one bad choice after another and her first response was to hit something instead of stopping for just a moment and thinking, “Hey, maybe something is wrong with me and I should get some help.” Deep down, she knew that it was time to face her demons. She knew that this was no way to live. Punishing herself for something that wasn’t even her fault. Listening to her mind degrading her and forcing her to do things she swore herself she would never do.

The only reason she decided to take drugs again was that the excruciating ache in her chest wouldn’t stop. Her soul was hurting and she didn’t know how else to stop it. She had never felt this useless before. All eyes were on her, and she could hear them talking. She could hear them talking behind her back, blaming her for everything, and they all agreed that she was the problem. She was at fault for every bad thing that went wrong in her life. There was no one else to blame, so she kept punishing herself, pushing beyond her limits until she was aching and bleeding on the floor. Only then did she stop. Anything to stop thinking about the hole that had been torn through her soul. She ruined her own life in the span of only a few days, which was remarkable, but it still hurt.

Yes, it hurt. She felt it everywhere, in every inch of her body. No matter how hard she trained, she wouldn’t stop feeling weak, not if she continued running herself dry like this. But her head wouldn’t allow her to stop. If anything, it kept screaming at her to continue. She wasn’t in control. She was a slave to the monster dictating her life. She hadn’t even made those choices consciously, she just wanted this pain to stop. Being alone seemed like the only way to stop causing damage, but in the aftermath, her heart shattered and she realized she had caused more damage to herself than anything else.

The bag flew off its hinges. She expected that to happen. Her knuckles were once again bloody, though she had foregone the bandages this time. She wanted to feel the full force of her hits breaking through her skin, making her suffer some more. The pain was an easy way for her to forget about temptation and overshadow whatever was broken inside of her.

She needed help, but she couldn’t possibly admit it to herself without the monster starting a war inside of her head.

“I should sue you for the holes in the ceiling,” Fury piped up behind her.

Eliza was busy cleaning her knuckles with the disinfectant she left behind.

“I think you know why I’m here.”

“Is it because I’m the poor little drug addict who stole from the hospital?” she condescended. “Because if so, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Well, your drug test did show traces of morphine in your blood. You were high. I was right.”

“That’s unfortunate.” She hissed when the cotton swab rubbed over a particularly deep cut. “What’re you gonna do? Admit me to the mental hospital? Sue me for theft? Send me to a home that doesn’t exist anymore? Please,” Eliza scoffed, “You can’t hurt me. Not anymore.”

You can’t hurt someone who doesn’t feel anything besides physical pain. Her soul had long stopped feeling anything other than unbridled rage.

“I don’t plan on punishing you,” he stated.

She laughed. “Ha! That’s a new one.”

“I want you to get better.”

“Haven’t you heard,” she told him, “I’m back at full capacity.”

“Yes, I heard.” Fury stepped forward, his hands so often crossed behind his back. “But that’s Hill’s physical assessment. Physically, you’re healthier than ever. Mentally? I beg to differ.”

Eliza snapped around. “What do you care? You never do. You’re as emotionless as they come. Why do you care about me, all of a sudden? That’s pathetic, Fury. I thought you knew better. I thought you were better, not weaker.”

“That right there proves me right in my suspicions that you need help,” he answered rather calmly. For him, that was new. He had never reacted like this before. She expected him to yell, but it never came.

She hit her fist against her forehead to stop the hammering inside her skull. “Fuck you!” she said. “You don’t know shit about me. You’re a fucking fool, that’s what you are. You can’t possibly think that I’m gonna listen to anything you have to say.”

“You’re traumatized, I think that’s pretty clear. You relapsed, that’s clear too. Now you’re training until you’re bloody and bruised just so you won’t have to face your emotions and relapse again. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve gone out of your goddamn mind, but this is withdrawal talking. Everyone deals with it differently and I refuse to accept that you’ve turned into an asshole,” he said.

“I’m not in withdrawal. I’m fine. I told you, I had it under control. You see I’m still standing, so you can’t deny that I dealt with it just fine. I am fine.”

“Jesus fucking Christ! You’re not fine!”

She flinched back when he yelled. Finally, she thought, but it also felt worse than the thrill she expected to feel at the prospect of making him angry. This wasn’t anger, he was worried.

“You need help, Bennett, and I’m not standing by and continue watching you work yourself to death,” said Fury. “I’m not doing it, so you better pull your head out of your ass and do something about it before it’s too late.”

Eliza tightened the bandage around her mangled hand. “Don’t worry, I will be out of your hair by sundown,” she retorted.

His large hand grabbed her bicep, pulling her back and therefore stopping her from leaving. Running had become her favorite thing to do, and he was done entertaining her. Something resembling worry filled his eye, and his lip turned downward in disapproval.

Her eyes darkened. “Let me go, Nick.”

“If you want to leave, we need to get some paperwork done first.”

“What paperwork?” she asked. “An NDA?”

He nodded.

“Oh, my…” she shook free of his hold. “Fine! I will sign your stupid NDA. As long as you leave me alone after that, I don’t give a single fuck about what I have to sign or not sign.”

“Conference room,” he told her plainly, “Five minutes. Take a goddamn shower before that.”

“Fuck you, too.”

Eliza headed for the conference room after a much needed shower, her bags already packed inside her room. She didn’t even knock this time, she just stomped in with her pen at the ready.

Fury was nowhere to be found. She looked around, searching for his face, but he was gone. Instead, her eyes fell on the familiar face sitting at the head of the table. The door shut behind her.

“What is this?” she asked. “An intervention?”

“Interventions usually require more than one person,” the woman answered. She had her notebook in front of her, legs crossed and her fingers intertwined before her on the Mahagoni. “No, I’m here for you.”

“Fuck this!”

She attempted to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Someone locked it from the outside, trapping her inside for the unforeseeable future.

Frustrated beyond compare, Eliza kicked the wall. This couldn’t be happening.

Mrs. Darcy didn’t appear to be moved by her outburst. She kept her calm, watching her patient intently as she started pacing around the room. Not a word was shared between them until the therapist chose to break the silence.

“I suppose you have a faint idea why I’m here,” she said.

“Yeah, because everyone here seems to think I’m fucked in the head,” Eliza bit back. “Which I’m not, by the way. It’s just become a trend to silently accuse me of that, so…”

“Oh, so you don’t think there is something wrong with you?��

“Oh, my God. I honestly don’t know why they brought you here, out of all people. They could have chosen any other therapist, but it just had to be you. Why? Because that’s supposed to make me talk? And now I’m locked in here. That can’t be legal. What the fuck is happening?” She kicked the door again. “I want to get out of here, now.”

“This is not an involuntary psych hold.”

“Then why does it feel that way?” she said.

“Sit,” Mrs. Darcy pointed to a chair next to her. Instead, Eliza took the one farthest away from her. She chuckled. “That’s better than nothing, I guess. You want some water?” she asked.

“Fuck the water! If you’re here to do a psych eval, just tell me what you want to hear and I’ll say it. Just make this quick so I can pack my shit and get out of here.”

“I understand that you’ve almost died, is that correct?”

She hated therapists.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“And Mister Fury recently ran a drug test which revealed that you have been abusing morphine for the past couple of days,” she said, definitely repeating what she had read in a file and not something she deduced on her own.

Eliza shrugged. “I had major surgery,” she explained, “I was in pain. I made that choice and it worked.”

“But you’re completely healthy now. Why would you continue taking morphine if not for recreational purposes?”

“What do you want from me, Mrs. Darcy?” she asked, exasperated. “I’m fine. I’m great. I don’t need a therapist. I just want to go home.”

“You don’t exactly have a home anymore,” Mrs. Darcy replied.

“That was a low blow. And even if I did, that would be none of your business. In fact, none of this is any of your business. This is my life, I get to make the decisions.” Eliza stood up. “I want to leave, right now.”

The woman smiled softly. “You could do that, or you could listen to that rational voice inside your head and sit back down so I can help you.”

“I don’t need help!” She groaned. “Why does nobody get that?”

“I think you need help, and I think you know that too. PTSD is nothing you should ignore. Besides, I can see in your eyes how scared you are. You might not want to admit it to yourself, but you’re scared of the person you’ve become and are continuing to turn into. You don’t know what you want. I’m here to help you figure that out. I’m here to help you find back to yourself.”

“No,” she said.

“Near-death experiences often lead to detachment from the self. I’ve seen it happen to many of my patients. And for you, the events that lead up to that experience were very triggering,” Mrs. Darcy stated as if she was living inside of her all this time. “You didn’t know how to deal with it, so you shut down. I get that, but you can’t keep living like this.”

“Maybe I don’t want to live,” she muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, that was not nothing. You just admitted something. That’s good. Please, Eliza,” she begged, “Let me help you get out of this spiral you’re in.”

Eliza threw her arms up. “What do you want from me? Do you want to hear about the fact that I found out that my father was alive? Or that Tony lied to me about all of it? That I have an infinity stone inside of me? That I’ve been hearing a voice in my head that somehow turned into a real person? That I’ve been having hallucinations?” she sucked in a sharp breath, realizing she stopped breathing halfway through the speech.

It all came spurting out of her like a broken waterline, and those have always been hard to fix.

“Or- or that I found out Hydra was still out there, hm?” she challenged. “That they wanted me solely for my blood? Or that my father sold me out? Or how about the part where I slept with Daredevil, like, many times and it was good fucking sex, but that’s not the point! He somehow fell in love with me, but I couldn’t love him back, so we broke up,” she said. “How does that sound?”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Darcy scribbled down her notes without even looking at the paper. She kept her eyes on Eliza, silently telling her that while she was doing something else, she had her full attention. She hated that look in her eyes. It always managed to make her break.

“Oh, and the Avengers came back. Surprise, surprise! But they knew about my past too, before I even did, so they lied. They all lied to me. Do you want to hear that? Do you want to hear about all the lies I’ve uncovered, told to me by the people I used to call my only family?”

She tilted her head. The motion infuriated her. “What else?” Mrs. Darcy asked, challenging her, and she refused to let her talk down on her, so she continued.

In her state of rage, she wasn’t in control of her words.

“Well, I can also offer you the fact that I dumped my friends to use my father to get into the White Room, which Hydra rebuilt realistically, may I add, and for the first time, I saw where I come from, so I had like this huge explosion of power that did a lot of fucked up things to our reality. Then, Hydra took me,” Eliza continued with a short laugh, “That was planned. Plot twist, I know. Turns out, the man who took my childhood was responsible for it all along. Viktor is his name. I can finally say it.”

And it felt good.

“I killed a man,” she said. She searched for any sign of resentment in the woman’s eyes, but she was met with the same steel façade she always wore.

Her nostrils flared as she huffed, shaking her head and cracking her knuckles behind her back. “He sang the lullaby Viktor used to sing for me. That stupid song… I snapped and it felt so fucking good.” Eliza licked her lips. “I can still feel his blood on me and I loved every second of watching that man die at my hands,” she said.

“That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?” Mrs. Darcy questioned and although the question was more than rhetorical, she had that particular glint in her eyes that she always had when she tried to provoke a reaction – she meant nothing and yet everything exactly the way she said it.

Her approach was different, radical and it worked. She hated that it worked. Her heart raced, blood boiling and the pent-up air in her joints released with every tense roll of her shoulders. She tried her hardest not to show how much this was affecting her, but there was nothing she could slip past the woman who had seen her through the worst of the worst and still continued to stay strong, not at all freaked or defeated. She could push as hard as she wanted, Mrs. Darcy was having none of it. The transparency came with the job.

“I tried to kill Viktor too, I already had the gun in my hand. I could have ended it right then and there, but I didn’t. Instead, I left to save the people who only lied to me time and time again. For what? To be lied to again?” Eliza sneered. “You want to know the best part? When I got out and we won, my not-brother came out to shoot me because he is- was a greedy little bastard that couldn’t deal with the fact that his idol loved me more than him,” she told her.

“I died, except that I didn’t. The whole time my heart stopped, I was in this abandoned hospital, going through all of the memories Hydra managed to wash out of me. I went from door to door and I saw my life flash before my eyes. That was hard.”

She sighed in defeat, hoping she got the most of it out and that she would finally ease her torture now, give her the freedom to walk and never look back. She wanted to so desperately, she would have done just about anything.

The world suffocated her under its weight that rested on her overworked shoulders again, and she could no longer hold it upright. “Can I go now?” she asked, still absent, still apathetic.

Eliza put a distance between her and the events she mentioned, turning them into the plot of a bad story instead of reality. That way, it became less real and she didn’t have to worry about the way the truth made her feel.

It was silly. She had to tell herself it was. It had to be. She couldn’t cry, she couldn’t let it break her. She was stronger than that. She was stronger than the broken girl they all saw her as. Giving in would only give them what they wanted.

“There is so much to unpack here,” Mrs. Darcy replied nonchalantly. She closed her notebook again, choosing to take a different approach. “What exactly did you see?” she asked.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Can we not do this?” she said. The please got caught in her throat.

“Eliza, what did you see?”

She shrugged as she slid down the wall, seating herself on the floor. Everything else felt too damn soft.

“You know-”

Eliza intercepted. “I watched my mother die,” she told her.

Mrs. Darcy leaned forward on her elbows. “Okay.”

“And my father tried to be good to me, but I guess I went a bit out of control. I saw myself hurt our neighbor when I was just one year old because he, uh, yelled at me and I couldn’t have that, so my body lashes out. No, the stone did. I don’t know, I wasn’t in control. I wasn’t there.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“Angry,” she answered. “All of this… it makes me so fucking angry. You make me angry.”

The therapist smiled. There it was, the pressure point she had been waiting for. She pushed her finger down on the bruise by saying, “And what do you have to be angry about?”

“All of it!” Eliza cried out. “My mother died because she chose my life over hers. My father failed to raise me, so he felt the need to give me away. Asgard wanted me, but instead of giving me to people who understood what was wrong with me, he made me join a program for powered children. He gave me to Hydra because he thought they could help me, and then Viktor took me in and he made me believe that he was the only man in my life who mattered,” she said. “And it makes me angry that I didn’t fight back. I didn’t fight back when they experimented on me. I didn’t fight back when they taught me how to kill, how to fight, and how to use the energy running through my veins. And I didn’t fight back when I was paraded like a zoo animal or when Viktor…” she dropped her head in her hands, grunting, “I didn’t fight back when he touched me. I let him tell me that I was only deserving of his love, that his word was all that mattered. I fucking let him take my childhood instead of fighting back.”

“Are you just angry or is there something else in there, perhaps? Another emotion you can’t quite place?”

“I’m ashamed! Is that what you want to hear? I’m ashamed of myself!” She knocked her head back against the wall. “I remember every single time he used his belt to punish me. He whipped me until I couldn’t breathe anymore; he whipped me until I was bleeding on the floor. I have the scars to prove it. Every time I look into the fucking mirror, I’m reminded of what I got and what he thought I deserved,” she said. “And I remember his hands… God, his fucking hands! And when I stood across from him in the White Room and he said all those things, I- I almost fell for them, do you understand? I believed what he said. I believed that I was a monster only he could love and that the people around me only get hurt because it’s me they’re around. And he was right, he was fucking right because now everyone I’ve ever cared about has gotten hurt in one way or another and I’m alone. I’m so fucking alone, I don’t know what to do. I need to keep them far away from me so I won’t get hurt again. So I won’t be the one to break them. But nobody gets that. You don’t get it!” she cried. “You’re supposed to get it but you don’t.”

Mrs. Darcy hummed. “But didn’t you choose to be alone?” she asked.

Eliza angrily wiped her cheek before rising back to her feet. “No, you don’t get to do that,” she bellowed. “You don’t get to say that to me. You don’t get to make me the villain of this story.”

“Tell me I’m wrong then.”

“I don’t… oh, fuck you! I know it’s my fault I’m alone. That’s why I never let myself fall for people. I used to let men use me and abuse me because Viktor did and I thought I deserved that.”

“But you didn’t deserve that. Sexual assault is not something that’s the victim’s fault, ever.”

“Well, at least I couldn’t hurt anyone back then. If I let them hurt me, there’s less chance of them getting hurt because of me.”

She chuckled. “That didn’t work so well, did it?”

“Yeah, that’s I’m trying very hard not to connect with people right now. You’re fucking that plan up, not me.”

She diverted her gaze out of the window. Eliza was trying her hardest not to cry. Somehow the sight of the roses outside made her choke up though. Roses were such beautiful flowers, and as the butterflies passed by she finally stopped to wonder, “What have I done?”

“What if,” she began, her voice cracking, so she swallowed and tried again, “What if, after everything that I’ve gone through, something’s gone wrong inside me… something bad.”

Mrs. Darcy gave her signature sigh. “You are not a bad person. Far from it, actually,” she said.

“But I killed someone.”

“Because the song you mentioned triggered the mechanism Viktor put inside of you with his constant brainwashing. You responded because there will always be a part of you that associates his voice with following his demands, any demands. That’s trauma, Eliza. Trauma doesn’t just go away.“

She leaned her forehead against the glass. Once again, the voices in her head kept shouting. The monster tore at her brain cells and poisoned her soul. She didn’t want to listen to them, she wanted to listen to Mrs. Darcy, but it was hard when all the sounds were overlapping and she couldn’t focus on anything but her labored breathing.

“I believe you were confronted with so many feelings, you didn’t know how to act, and the love you received only reminded you of what happened. It’s twisted and doesn’t make sense, but Viktor traumatized you. Hydra traumatized you. The constant reminder of what they’ve done to you has manifested and maybe you just didn’t want to be yourself anymore, so you shut down.”

She hated herself. She wished she could exchange her mind and body for something else, something new, a piece of her that wasn’t damaged goods. Perhaps then she would finally have a place in the world.

Her leg bounced up and down to the beat of her speeding pulse. She wiped her cheeks, shaking her head no, because no, she was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to know Eliza better than she knew herself, and put the things she struggled to voice into words that made sense even to her twisted state of mind. If she allowed her in, she was done for. She would officially be the basket case.

Her defenses were close to crumbling. She was barely holding on to what was left.

Mrs. Darcy sensed that and made sure to point the gun straight at her weakest spot and pull the trigger. “Your mind is trying to protect itself,” she explained in all of her psychological glory, “but the real you is starting to come through and it makes you rethink what you did, subconsciously at least. That’s normal and that’s more than okay. You’re allowed to snap. It’s the trauma that’s wrong, not you. The way you’re feeling is not your fault and there is hope for you to get better; nothing has gone wrong inside of you. It’s just trauma, nothing more, and lucky for you, trauma can be dealt with if approached correctly.”

Eliza scoffed.

“That’s why I’m here.”

“I feel like part of me died on that table,” she winced. “And the voices in my head keep telling me to destroy myself. In their opinion, everything is my fault and I don’t deserve to breathe.”

“And that makes you angry?” Mrs. Darcy asked to clarify. “Being controlled by forces that are out of your control? Having depression possess you and you’re helpless and can’t fight back?”

She shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know.”

This was no life worth living.

“Let me tell you something,” she switched positions by seating herself on the edge of the table, “Everyone’s got broken pieces. Some have more, some have less. It doesn’t make you less of a person or a bad one to have those a part of you,” she said.

“Then why does it feel that way?”

“Well, there are many different people on this planet. All of us struggle with something different. You might have different fears than me and we’re obviously on very different paths. However, when we get down to the core of it, there are two things that every single human being on this planet struggles with.”

“What’s that?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.

Mrs. Darcy smiled back at her. “Admitting when we’re wrong, and admitting when we’re broken.”

When she didn’t answer, the therapist reached for the chair next to her. She pulled out a cardboard box with differently colored toys, soft ones from the look of it, and she shoved it toward her.

Eliza frowned. “What’s that?”

“How about we throw some shit against the wall,” she offered. “How does that sound?”

“Throw some shit against the wall?” she repeated.

“Yes. You say you’re angry, I want to know what exactly you’re angry about.”

She looked at her a bit perplexed. Mrs. Darcy was very equipped when it came to talking, but this was a new method, even for her. She had never suggested she let her anger out on objects, let alone throw things. The suggestion took her so off guard, the tears stopped before they could even come.

“Here,” she handed her a pink, fluffy dolphin, “Throw it.”

She followed her demand only hesitantly. The dolphin didn’t even make it halfway across the room before it hit the ground instead. She gnawed on her bottom lip.

Mrs. Darcy sighed. She pushed herself up to her feet, grabbed one of the blue squishy balls out of the box, and threw it with full force against the wall. Eliza raised her eyebrows at the sheer strength of her therapist.

“Your throw was pathetic,” she stated. “Try again.”

Determined to prove her wrong - because everything in Eliza’s life was somehow a competition she wanted to win - she grabbed a stuffed animal from the collection and aimed it at the wall. This time, she hit her target. The hard eyes of the dog hit the wood with a loud thud.

“Tell me, what were you thinking when you threw that dog?”

“That sounds so wrong. Uh… I was thinking about beating you, mostly.”

“That’s fair. Life’s a competition, I get it. Now, grab another one and put some more anger into it. Really use that strength you were given. Don’t think, just do it. Be angry.”

She did as she was told. The next toy hit the wall and this time, she cried out, “Viktor took my childhood and my pride, and I’m angry it took me so long to realize that he was entirely wrong in his assessment of me,” she said.

Mrs. Darcy clapped. “Good! What else? Keep ‘em coming.”

“I’m angry that my family lied to me!” Eliza aimed another toy at the wall. She was sure she would leave holes in it after. “I’m angry that my father gave me away and that he sold me out! And I’m angry that he sacrificed himself to stop Hydra and save my life because he was my fucking dad – he’s supposed to be here, not dead! He supposed to be alive and make amends not take the coward’s way out and fucking die on me!”

Tears had started to form in her eyes again, but she didn’t stop them this time.

The collection in the box shrunk. She reached aimlessly, throwing the next best object against the wall. Her voice boomed. “Tony was supposed to help me. He promised me he would always help me,” she said. “Natasha was supposed to be my sister. Clint was like a father to me. They were supposed to be my family and they still lied! They all betrayed me. Every single one of them.

“I’m angry that I killed that man, and that I didn’t see Ivan coming before he shot me. I’m angry that it took me almost dying to remember everything, and that I turned into a ghost after I woke up. I’m angry that I hurt Matt more than once after I promised him and myself that I wouldn’t do it. And then I took drugs because I was angry and in pain and I wanted to feel nothing, which only made me feel worse. It makes me fucking,” she threw the ball, “hate,” she threw another toy, “myself!” She grabbed the last object and this time, she left a clear indentation in the wall.

Her scream was agonizingly loud, traveling as an echo through the room, bouncing off the walls and filling the entire compound with negative energy, it seemed.

“But most importantly I’m angry that he fell in love with me and I don’t know shit about my feelings!” Another scream and the cardboard box soared against the wall. “Oh, God,” she went weak in the knees, falling to the floor, “I’m incapable of love.”

She heaved one last breath before the gates of hell opened and she broke down completely. Tears spilled from her eyes and her sobs turned into a cacophony of screams and hiccups. She held tightly onto the crystal necklace she had not once taken off.

The world around her crumbled, and the monster in her head drowned in the flood. The voices left, though the emptiness in her soul remained, and the hole only grew wider. With each sob, she lost another ounce of strength. Her heart got tied in a knot.

Mrs. Darcy knelt next to her. “That’s good,” she cooed. “Let it out.”

“No.” Eliza pushed her hand away. “I- I don’t want to let it out. I just want the pain to stop. Why won’t it stop? Oh, God!”

She helped her off the floor and into one of the chairs.

“Your not-boyfriend boyfriend is catholic, isn’t he?”

What does that have to do with anything? She only sobbed harder.

Her therapist seemed to be onto something though.

“It's rather funny. Every civilization to exist has made up some sort of God or religion. It's like we can't stand to be alone in this."

Eliza focused on her voice.

“What I’m trying to tell you is that you’re not the only one who feels alone most of the time,” Mrs. Darcy said. “We all do. Some people rely on faith, for example. They channel all of their negative energy and bring it to church because God gives them a purpose in life. They believe he guides them. And then there are people like you, people who are traumatized and who don’t see a point in religion. You find something else to hold onto. Pushing people away only makes the pain worse. You need someone to hold onto; if you want to stop being in pain, you need to stop pushing people away. That’s the only way.”

She focused on the woman’s breathing and the way her words sounded. Her sobs died down only slowly. The tears kept flowing, but she could breathe again, the sounds reduced to small hiccups whenever she took a deep breath.

Mrs. Darcy offered her a drink of water and she took it gladly. The liquid helped with her sore throat, clearing some of the fog in her brain along the way.

She waited until she had calmed down to continue. It was sweet torture, but it seemed to help.

If this was what she had needed all along, she made quite the fool out of herself. And just like that, the guilt settled back in and built a nest in her soul.

“The worst part is,” Eliza eventually found her voice again, though only weakly as she spoke, “I don’t know why I’m feeling this way. One second I’m fine, the next I feel like dying and then I’m just empty. And I’m standing here, like a fool,” she said. “I can’t do anything about it. This swirl of nothingness keeps me tied to the ground and while I’m supposed to be in pain – I think I’m supposed to be, anyway – I don’t feel a thing. I’m numb to the point it’s excruciating, so it is painful but not really, not at all. What if… what if this is what I’m supposed to be? Just one broken amalgamation of broken pieces people will continue cutting themselves on. I mean, how am I supposed to live when my own body doesn’t want to anymore? When my mind is so tired, it can’t stop thinking, what if- what if I’d died that day?”

She stopped to swallow. The vulnerability tasted bitter on her tongue, triggering a wave of nausea. Facing the truth hurt like a bitch.

“I keep thinking maybe it would’ve been kinder if they’d just let me pass. At least then I wouldn’t feel like such a fucking burden all the time. What if that’s all I will ever be? It’s terrifying, how much I’ve been thinking about that lately. I just want it all to stop. I don’t want to not feel, but I also don’t want to feel. I just… the things I’m feeling are confusing and I’m starting to realize that maybe, I’ve made a mistake. Maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t have pushed Matt away the way I did. The things I said were cruel, Mrs. Darcy,” she said, “and he probably hates me now, but I can’t stop wanting him, even now, but especially since he’s gone. Not a day has passed in which I don’t think about him and it scares me.”

Something clicked in the therapist’s brain. She pulled out another chair and sat down across from her.

“He’s shown you quite a lot of love, hasn’t he?” she said. “And you felt suffocated by it because you’re not used to romantics.”

“No one’s ever loved me before,” Eliza admitted, her voice broken down into shambles. “I don’t know how it’s supposed to feel, but he loved me so much it hurt and I broke his heart. He cut himself on my edges because I wanted him to. I wanted him to hurt so he could move on with someone who could make him happy.”

“But he was happy with you.”

“No, he wasn’t. It was merely co-dependency. He fell in love with me after we leaned on each other in an impossible situation,” she said. “That’s inherently different.”

“Is it though?” Mrs. Darcy asked.

Eliza thought about it. Their relationship had been toxic, there was no doubt about it, simply because she was toxic. He deserved a much better girlfriend than her. She wasn’t made for this, and while she warned him, nothing could have prepared him for the storm that she brought on. She always did. She destroyed everyone she was with – that was the reason for her lack of relationship experience. She had never allowed any of her endeavors to go this far. Perhaps that was precisely the problem though.

She wiped her snotty nose. “He looks at me in a way that makes me want to believe in myself. Ironic, really, ‘cause he’s blind, but… yeah, I don’t know.” She returned to playing with her fingers in her lap, playing with the loose skin on her thumb once again. Her thigh twitched every so often, shaking up and down in a steady rhythm.

“You were scared of that, weren’t you?”

“I don’t…” she sighed, “I don’t know anymore. What I do know is that I’m sorry for what I did to him, but it’s probably too late now anyway.”

“You’re not incapable of love,” Mrs. Darcy declared. “If anything, you’re one of the most loving people I’ve ever met. You care deeply, you just haven’t had the chance to explore romantic love yet because your view on intimacy has been twisted from the very beginning… and now you’ve been betrayed numerous times and he’s shown you more affection than you’ve ever been shown, so you chose to lock him out because you were scared of what loving him would entail.”

“But I don’t love him,” she argued.

“Are you sure about that?”

Eliza got up to stare out of the window again. She couldn’t face her. She wouldn't listen to the one thing she didn’t want to hear.

Mrs. Darcy was having none of it. She joined her in front of the big glass window, sighing at the beauty of nature. The sun fell right on their faces.

“You’re right, I care. I care a lot,” she said. “Matt is just… he’s something else. And I’m not talking about sex, not at all. He’s special. I care for him a lot, everything he ever did for me, every time he smiled fondly at me, every time he praised me for the smallest things, it just felt right with him … I feel complete with him and I just want him close to me at all times, while also wanting him as far away from me as possible. His affection hurts, but at the same time, I can’t get enough of it. He makes me want to burn the world down and build it up again. Life without him is torture, which seemed to only have added to my pain, but I couldn’t let him stay. He would’ve gotten hurt sooner or later so I made the conscious choice to allow him to move on. He doesn’t deserve a toxic relationship atop everything else. I’m not used to feeling this way. I don’t know, it’s stupid. I’m stupid.”

She shook her head, “I don’t think you are. I think you know exactly what’s going on. As I said, you’re scared and it’s keeping you from allowing anyone all the way in.”

“Don’t you get it?” Eliza sighed. “Matt loves with a certain devotion because he has only been hurt in the past and he’s scared people might leave him. He’s in a constant battle with himself, scared of never being good enough, scared of doing the wrong thing, scared of disappointing his friends. So he pushes them away. He does what he thinks is right, and it often is. When he loves someone, he loves so hard, it hurts,” she said. “He needs to hold on as tightly as possible because he is scared that if he doesn’t, he will lose that person forever. He’s scared they will walk out the door and never come back. He doesn’t just fall in love with anybody, he falls in love when he has faith that the person is the right one, so he lets them into his beautiful, big heart. He’s so scared of getting hurt, of being not good enough, and he’s… he’s scared… of love, because he’s been hurt before, but… he does it anyway. He does it because he has faith and fear… fear paralyzes, but it isn’t stronger than love.”

She blinked once, twice, feeling the metaphorical hit with the brick in every fiber of her body as she seemed to finally wake up. She opened her eyes to the truth, and the truth was right in front of her.

“Oh, my God.”

Mrs. Darcy might as well have held up a mirror for her to look into. She would have said the same thing.

“Fucking- oh, what have I done?”

The woman smirked knowingly. “Something you want to share with the class?” she teased.

Eliza had other plans. The realization hit her so hard, it felt like a semi-truck just ran her over. She grabbed her jacket from the chair, throwing it over her shoulders. She almost twisted her arm, she was that eager. Her heartbeat picked up at the mere thought of seeing him again.

“I’m so fucking stupid. An idiot! I am an idiot. Officially, I’m the dumbest fucking person on this goddamn planet. Fuck me. Oh, shit!”

The series of swear words surprised Mrs. Darcy, as did the girl’s sudden movements to get her clothes in place.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

Eliza stared at her. “I need to fix this.” Duh.

“Sorry, what?”

“I have to fix this. I was so stupid, I didn’t realize… he’s me. He’s me! Matt is me.”

“And?”

“And I’m an idiot.”

“You already said that.”

“Just… I need to fix this. I need to try and salvage what’s left. I have to… there has to be a way. I can’t… God, I was so stupid. I have to try, at least. I need to tell him,” she said. Her converse clicked against the floor as she jumped up to hug her therapist. “Thank you!” The first genuine smile spread across her face. She hadn’t smiled like that since before she got shot and Hydra took her.

Sometimes, the truth isn’t that bad. Sometimes, realization can be exciting. And sometimes, or most of the time, therapy sets a lot of shit right.

There was still so much to unpack, so much to heal, and the topic of her addiction had to be explored further, but at that moment all Eliza could think about was Matt and how incredibly stupid she had been. Blind, too. She had been blind, afraid to look into the mirror and see the truth. She was pathetic and completely idiotic, in a pathetic way that made her embarrassed even for the way she breathed, and she had to pull herself together and fix this or else she would hate herself until the end of time.

She forgot that the door was locked and ran straight into it. “Damn it,” she cursed.

Mrs. Darcy didn’t hesitate long. She pulled out a key and the door opened with a small twist.

Eliza exhaled. The door handle crashed into the wall behind it, breaking the wood. “Thank you,” she said.

The woman was about to say something, but she had already taken off down the hallway.

“Young love,” she sighed. “So predictable.”

Eliza found her way out of the compound. She jogged to the nearest street where she waved frantically until one of the few cabs stopped for her. “I need to get to Hell’s Kitchen as fast as you possibly can,” she told the driver. “Life or death situation.”

As soon as she said that, he floored the gas.

She only began to think about her decision when she was already halfway there. All the things she thought she wanted to say vanished from her brain. She even rehearsed a speech, but the familiar streets of Hell’s Kitchen stole her breath, and she couldn’t string together a single viable thought.

The cabby stopped when she patted his shoulder. Her hands were shaking as she handed him the money. She could see him clearly out of the cab’s window. He almost reached his front step, wearing one of his work suits, and his cane tightly clutched in his hand as he walked down the street.

She jumped out of the backseat just in time.

“Matt, wait!” she called out.

He froze. His head tilted in her direction, listening to the way her heart sang the all too familiar song. She was warm and freshly showered and she still wore the same shirt and leggings combo SHIELD had given her after she woke up. It was a fresh pair, of course, and the pair of Converse was new too. She seemed healthy otherwise, only slightly malnourished, overworked and tired.

Matt was more shocked than surprised to sense her presence, and the way her heart jumped at his sight had him frowning even deeper.

“Eliza?” he asked.

Her systems malfunctioned. “Hi,” she said.

“What are you doing here?”

Ouch. She more than deserved his harsh tone, but it still hurt.

She balled her fists, walking up to him. It was now or never, and she hadn’t come this far just to stay silent and stare at him like a total creep. Though he looked too good not to let her gaze linger for a little while longer.

“I, um…” Eliza cleared her throat. “Okay, so, I actually thought of this amazing speech on the drive here, but I just… I forgot, so I’m just gonna freestyle.”

“Okay?” There was reservation on his face. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she suspected they matched his entire attitude.

She cleared her throat again, the lump only growing bigger. “I’m sorry,” she said. “And I’m well aware sorry doesn’t cut it even close. I hurt you more than once and I broke your heart in the process. I said terrible things to you, things I didn’t even mean. I pushed you away. You didn’t deserve any of that and I am so sorry for what I did. But I also know you don’t trust me right now, which is fair. I… okay, the past couple of days I trained my ass off to get back on my feet, and while that worked perfectly, I pushed away the real problem, which was me. I’m the problem.

“No, I’m the one with the problems. You were right, I need help. The things that happened kept me awake at night, making it impossible to sleep and I only felt suffocated by your kindness, so I started to resent you,” she said. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away when things got hard and I should have talked to you about what was wrong with me instead of ignoring all the obvious signs that my mental health was getting bad again. That is no excuse for my behavior, far from it, I just… I spent the past, I don’t know, eight hours talking to my therapist and I felt so stupid, so humiliated, I wasn’t sure if I was even gonna make it out of this. But I realized something. I realized something that I should have realized a long time ago.”

Matt darted his tongue out to wet his bottom lip. “I’m glad to hear you’re okay,” he said, “but what does that have to do with me?”

Eliza nodded. She deserved it, she deserved all of that. Maybe she was too late, maybe he had moved on, but she wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

“You don’t take sugar in your latte, but you take one in your regular coffee and just the slightest amount of creamer,” she began.

His ears perked up. She was going all in now, all or nothing, the winner would take it all and she prayed to a God she didn’t believe in that all of this trying wouldn’t be for nought and he would declare her the winner in the end – the winner of his heart. The winner of his forgiveness. She would do just about anything to get back what she lost; she had given the best thing in her life away as if he had been an object at an auction. There was no price she wouldn’t pay to get him back.

Once she knew she had his full attention, she dared to inch closer. “And you prefer chamomile tea over any of the other flavors because it’s not as strong, though you said it’s also because chamomile tea still tastes good when you let it set for just a little shorter than what’s written on the box,” she said. “You keep your most used spices on the right side because you are right-handed and it makes it easier for you to grab things. Your furniture stands a certain way and you refuse to move it. You use silk sheets because cotton feels like sandpaper on your skin. You have curtains, but you don’t close them because you don’t need them, but since we’ve known each other I’ve noticed you closing them every night so I could sleep better. You also have this habit of fidgeting with your fingers,” She broke off with a chuckle. “It’s adorable. You do it when you’re nervous or just thinking, and when you’re condescending, you place your hands on your hips.

“And you also keep tags on your suits and your everyday clothing, but not on your sleep shirts or your underwear. You have a collection of canes in the closet because you like to throw them around when you happen to hear something while you’re outside. And when you get overstimulated, you like to sit in the shower and listen to the water rain down on the tiles to lull your sense of hearing.”

She watched his body language. He turned his head anywhere but her direction, though she knew he was listening closely to what she said. There was a slight cut on his lip, she realized, and the shadow of a bruise formed around his left eye. She wondered what happened since he left; if he started beating up criminals again, or if he just let someone beat him senseless to make the pain go away.

“Rain is your favorite weather because it drowns out the noise of New York,” Eliza continued, ignoring the ache in her chest at the sight of him. “I know you don’t like summer because you often get too hot, winter is too cold for you, so you prefer spring or fall. You like the taste of peppermint and pumpkin spice, but only when it’s made a certain way, or else you get overwhelmed. This is why you don’t go to the expensive coffee shops, only to those you know and frequent because you know they always get your coffee order right. It’s usually the same, but not always. Sometimes, you like to be adventurous. Many people see you as a very serious person, but you’re not. You know how to crack a joke and the wrinkles around your eyes prove that you used to laugh a hell of a lot more. And your smile… God, that smile.

“You know, the genuine one you don’t give everyone, the one you often match with a giddy laugh or a giggle, it lights up every room you’re in, even though you only show it every once in a while,” she chuckled, “And every time you walk into a room, you take everyone’s breaths away because you are just so damn beautiful. Something you refuse to believe,” she said.

“And you are a man who believes in many things, just not in himself. You think you’re worthless because you’ve been hurt many times before, but when you care for someone, you care for them deeply, past experiences be damned. It’s remarkable how much good you see in this broken world. I know that you struggle with faith more often than not, but you always come back to it. Always,” Eliza emphasized with the strength of an army. “It offers you solace and reminds you of your childhood, which isn’t often paired with happy memories, but you feel less alone when you pray. Faith gives you something to hold onto.”

She sunk her teeth into her bottom lip. It was hard to tell what he was feeling or even thinking. He stood as stiff as stone, turning away from her as if he could see and the sight of her filled him with disgust.

“I’m not religious, far from it,” she admitted, though it was a well-known fact. “My heart is full of the hate of some other man’s belief. All that I’ve been taught and every word I got right now if I can even find them, are foreign to me. I’m mostly empty inside, I pretend to be a hero and then I go around breaking people’s hearts, I’m a fraud, and when I went to church, I didn’t know what God to pray to, I just poured my heart out to someone I don’t believe in. He’s foreign to me. Everything in this world is still somewhat foreign to me because my life has long revolved around being told what to do or believe, and I took that with me. When I got out, I didn’t really get out. I never really came back. I’m broken,” she stated, “but you’re perfect, even with your broken edges and your imperfections. Your eyes are wide open to the world even though you can’t see, and you’re always filled with so much love for everything and everyone around you, it’s almost sickening. I thought your love was making me sick, but I was so wrong. So, so wrong, Matt. I would give all this and heaven too if only for a moment I could just understand the meaning of the world you see. I’ve been scrawling it for what feels like fucking forever and it never made sense to me before. The world meant nothing before you came around. I didn’t understand it, but it makes sense to me now. It all makes sense.”

He finally turned to her. “What does that mean?” he asked.

“It means that I am unconditionally, irrevocably, head-over-heels in love with you!” Eliza burst at the seams. “I have been from the day you first kissed me. Hell, I think I’ve been in love with you since you stepped into that stupid interrogation room to bail me out. It’s because you came back. No one’s ever done that for me before. I was stupid and so scared of love that I pushed all of my feelings down. But you’ve occupied every thought I had ever since you left, and I can’t seem to get you out of my head. You’re always there, everywhere I go. Everything reminds me of you and it hurts to know you’re not there. I wondered why… this is why!”

Matt folded his cane, dropping it on the doorstep.

“I’m in love with you, Matthew Michael Murdock, and it feels so fucking good to finally say it out loud. Everything makes sense now. It feels like I can finally breathe again; after all this time of walking in the darkness, I’ve finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m choosing to walk toward it,” she said. “And I know that I’ve hurt you, I’ve hurt you badly, and there is a very big chance I might not be able to fix this… there is a chance that you have fallen out of love with me, that you don’t love me anymore because of what I’ve done, and I’d understand that. I’d understand if you rejected me or told me to go to hell, but please, say something before I make an even bigger fool out of myself. I really can’t find any more words to say that would make sense to anyone but myself. I mean, I’ve already embarrassed myself, so I guess it can’t get any worse, but...”

“Eliza?” he said.

“What?”

“Shut up.”

She gasped audibly when he grabbed her by the waist, pulling her into him with a strength that remained unmatched, and crashed his lips into hers.

Eliza melted into the kiss instantly, her hands coming up to hold his face. He had the same idea. As she pushed back against him, he gently brushed his fingers over her cheekbone. His lips still moved feverishly against hers, and she submitted to him completely. He chose the pace and the intensity, he explored her mouth with his tongue and she let him.

Eventually, he dove up for air, and she stared at him breathlessly as the moonlight fell on his face and reflected off his glasses. She pressed her forehead against his, breathing him in. He showered with his body wash again, and his hair was fluffy from his shampoo. She had missed his signature scent and the way his body molded with hers.

Matt removed his glasses, tossing them in the direction of his cane. They landed on the ground. He grabbed her face again, not wasting another second to combine them into one. Her nails raked over his jaw, the other getting lost in his chestnut hair. She sighed and he took the opportunity to deepen the connection.

She couldn’t believe this was happening. It felt as if it had just been the previous day when she pushed him away and now he was kissing her in front of his home after she expressed her love for him. A love she had undoubtedly felt from the beginning but hadn’t allowed herself to feel until it was too late - almost too late.

His kisses grew more desperate and Eliza had to physically restrain herself from sliding her hand down his body. He had been working out, there was no doubt about it.

He pulled away once again, this time opening his eyes so she could see him fully. There it was again, the look he had given her so many times before, and he could finally pinpoint the one she gave him, the one she didn’t know how to explain before.

“So,” she murmured, “do you hate me?”

Matt chuckled hoarsely. “You are the dumbest smart person I have ever met,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I love you too, you insufferable dumbass. That hasn’t changed. I’m in love with you, Liz, all of you, even the parts that are a little ugly. I couldn’t stop loving you even if I tried and believe me, I tried, but it’s just not possible when it comes to you. I’m in love with you,” he said, “Nothing you do or say could ever change the way I feel so deeply about you.”

“Oh.“

“Seriously, did you think I’d kiss you and then tell you to go to hell?”

“I have no idea. I thought-”

“Stop thinking.” He pulled her face toward his again. “I don’t care how many times you hurt me, I still love you like I did the first day. Even though you annoy the shit out of me sometimes. You did on that rooftop the night we first met, but instead of hating you I think I fell in love from the moment you first tried to punch me. You took me so off guard with the amazing, badass, fucking reckless woman that you are and I fell for you right then and there.”

“Why though?” she wondered.

“Because you bewitched me, body and soul,” he told her. “You weren’t really fair about the whole thing.”

“Oh, fuck me.” Eliza initiated the kiss this time, though when she pressed her lips against his, she used her whole body to push into him.

He groaned, wrapping his arm around her waist and holding her right there, her chest pressed against his, and her leg moving slowly to wrap around his hip. His hand traveled the distance, smoothing over the fabric of her pants and moving higher to brush over the curve of her ass.

He breathed into her mouth, “It’s gonna rain soon.”

“I don’t care,” she said.

They got completely lost in the feel of each other. As predicted, the sky soon opened up to release its tears onto them. Eliza had cried enough for a lifetime and Matt probably had, too. She didn’t even want to know how much he suffered at her hand and what it made of him.

The past mattered no more though. They were together, in each other’s arms, where they were supposed to be.

She loved him, she did and admitting it took so much weight off her chest, she forgot what else had happened the past hours and days. Eliza didn’t care about Natasha or the others, she didn’t even care about the drugs. At that moment, she craved only one thing and that was him in any way he could give himself to her, and she would give herself to him freely too, just so he could do whatever he wanted. She wanted to touch him while he touched her. Kissing wasn’t even remotely enough.

The rain mixed with their salivas, making it harder to keep their faces together. Water dripped from his lashes to her own. She giggled, her hair flattening, as did his. His grin told her he was enjoying this as much as she did, kissing in the rain after a dramatic love confession.

Even though Matt didn’t watch movies and she only watched that kind when she was depressed on valentine’s day, they still found their personal rom-com moment in the midst of despair. Love didn’t come to people like them often. They had to use what they were given without questioning the universe’s intent.

Their noses pressed together. “Told you,” he said.

“I love the rain,” she told him. “It’s so beautiful. Reminds me of home.”

Throwing her head back, she felt the salty water on her flushed skin. It hadn’t been that long, but she was starting to go crazy in captivity, so she needed to have that moment for herself.

She wasn’t sure why but she associated the rain with him, not because it was cold or wet but because it had such a tragic beauty about it.

Growing old with someone required dedication, devotion, discipline, and most of all undying love for the other. They weren’t quite there yet, but she was sure she wanted more with him than just making out in the rain. She wanted more than suffering through trauma together, more than sex, and more than meaningful hugs. She wanted that, of course, but also the rest that came with love. The pretty and the ugly, the loving and fighting, the giggles, the laughter, and most of all, the happiness. She wanted to learn what it was like to be in love because she had no idea how to love, but she was willing to try, for him, because she was already in it. She was in love with him.

Matt tore her out of her thoughts with the gentlest of kisses down her neck. He breathed in her scent and felt her pulse under his lips. It jumped with excitement and he grinned. He loved having that effect on her, even now, but especially now.

“We’re gonna get sick,” he whispered into her ear.

She traced her fingers over his wet shirt. “I don’t care.”

He captured her lips, trying to ignore the shivers her touch sent down his spine. She clawed to his side, holding him impossibly tight. He smoothed her wet hair back. She sighed. If it weren’t for the cold, she would have gladly stayed longer.

“Okay, but maybe we should go inside,” she said. “It’s getting pretty wet, but not in a good way.”

He giggled, his cheeks flushed from the cold and perhaps because of her confession that filled his heart with an adoration that didn’t hurt this time. He was almost… happy. “I agree,” he said.

“C’mon. Let’s go home.”

Eliza took his hand, grabbing the glasses and his cane off the floor. He smiled softly at her consideration. Handing her the key, he merely followed as she walked them up the stairs to his apartment, a familiar route, and unlocked the door.

She didn’t get very far before he pushed her wet back against the wall and attacked her mouth with bruising kisses. Her body responded the only way it knew how to. She moaned, bucking her hips into his.

Matt kicked off his shoes, and she followed. He tucked her by the hem of her pants toward the bathroom. She let him. Her brain was fuzzy from the clear attention to detail, his lingering touches, and the caress of his lips along her cold skin. He offered her a warmth that could have dried her clothes in an instant. Though it was her heart that was warm, not her body.

He pressed another kiss to her cheek, excusing himself, and then he was gone and she was alone, and she felt insecure all of a sudden. Her arms crossed, shielding her body. He couldn’t see, but he could feel, and she wasn’t sure what he would think when he felt the way her body had changed. Even she couldn’t look at herself in the mirror. She was too repulsed by what she saw. The scars she already had were nothing in comparison to what was left of the brutal shooting at the White Room.

She tried to look cool when he returned, leaning up against the sink. “Brought you some fresh clothes,” he told her.

“Thanks,” she said.

He could tell something was off from the change in her tone. Her heartbeat sounded almost erratic. She toyed with the soft fabric of the gray sweatpants he brought for himself, and the black ones for her. She figured the grey ones were for him because he paired them with a plain shirt and she got his old Columbia shirt instead. It probably smelled like her and sex, indicating that it was the shirt she had worn many times when they fucked and no longer just a flap of fabric. And she had never seen him wear it before either, only the plain ones, so she owned it.

The shirt was hers, and he knew that too. He kept it. He kept it in the hopes of giving it to her again, and he hadn’t given them up. She came back and she could wear it as often as she wanted.

What was his was hers now, too.

He picked the white shirt. She loved that one with all her heart, thinking about the way it hugged his bicep just right and framed his torso tightly enough to give a good image of his muscles but not give away too much. He gave those who didn’t know him a good idea of what hid underneath the covers, but only she knew what laid behind the allusion. She saw it, she touched it and she now could whenever she wanted to.

The whole arrangement was new, terrifying even, and it urged her back into her cocoon. She stood strong, but she wasn’t sure for how long she could keep holding on before the jaws would snap shut, locking her in place with invisible shackles behind the bars of her mind’s own prison.

“You okay?” Matt stroked her cheek.

She answered by opening the buttons of his dress shirt one by one.

“Sweetheart,” he said again, “What’s going on in that little head of yours? Tell me. Don’t disappear on me again.”

Her hands worked fast to undress him until he was only in his boxers, standing in front of her with a slight smirk. “Do you want this?”

She nodded. It wasn’t verbal confirmation. He needed more than that.

“You can say no,” he told her.

“Wait,” she stuttered, halting all of her movements and daring to look at him for the first time since she started slipping away again, meeting his very concerned eyes, “I can?” she asked.

His heart dropped. “Of course, you can. I thought that was never out of question.” Matt traced her features to get a good impression of her expression.

He drew along the line on her forehead, smoothing out the small wrinkle and pressing his lips to the obvious display of emotional distress.

Eliza knew how to keep her emotions hidden away, but feeling her face always offered one crucial clue most people didn’t know existed. The crease on her forehead wasn’t one that came with age, it was a worried frown that had manifested and only showed when she started to think too much, and worried about things that were mostly irrational.

“Hey,” he cooed, “did I ever give you the impression that you couldn’t say no to sex?”

She swallowed. The line deepened, this time though because she panicked and the confusion started to mix with the I’ll-placed concern. “No!” Eliza answered quickly, shivering under the caress of his thumb over the prominent worried wrinkle. “I just… I wasn’t sure… I wanted this,” she said, “Until I didn’t, but I didn’t want to disappoint you. I just got you back. So I thought I could roll with it, I guess. I thought I would start wanting it again, I just had to try. Didn’t want to make you question your decision to take me back because you feel like I don’t really want you.”

“What? Oh, baby, who hurt you?”

She whimpered when he pulled her into a hug. His body was warm, even when wet. She melted once again, wrapping her arms around him.

“I know people have pushed you into having sex before, but I won’t. I would never,” he said. “You know that. You should know that. I should have made that clearer.”

“It’s not you, I promise.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. No means no.”

“I don’t like my body right now. You’re so beautiful,” she whispered, “but I feel far from it, so thinking about your hands on me, I…” the tears sprung back into action.

He sighed, rubbing his thumbs over her swollen under-eyes. “I’m sorry, I should have checked in with you.”

“Don’t, please.”

“Never feel like you can’t say no to me,” he told her. “It hurts me to know that you’ve never had that option before. I’m different from all of the lowlife men you’ve been with in the past. I love you,” Matt pecked her lips, “And I find you to be the most beautiful person out there, so I would love nothing more than to touch you any chance I get, but it’s your body, your choice, and if you say you don’t feel like being touched, that’s your right. Never think that I would be angry at you for saying no, okay? Promise me you’ll tell me from now on?”

She shuddered against him. “Okay.”

“That’s good, sweetie. Thank you.”

“I love you so much, Matthew. I really want to want this… I want the intimacy, I want to feel you, but I just can’t…”

He shushed her again by kissing the Sorry lines away from her forehead. “Would you like to take a bath with me?” he suggested.

She nodded weakly.

“Hot bath,” he turned on the tap to fill the tub with water, “Always makes you feel better. I won’t even have to touch anywhere you don’t want me to while you can still feel my skin on yours. Innocently, of course.”

“I already feel better,” Eliza said.

He took her back into his arms, helping her out of her shirt without touching her skin. She slipped out of her soaked pants and her underwear. Matt removed his boxers, the last piece of clothing left between them.

She sighed at the sight of him. He was still just as beautiful. Her fingers traced over the outline of his abs and his swollen scars. She wanted him to touch her too, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t have him trailing his fingers down her torso, feeling the thick scar that stretched from where her breasts ended to her navel. The scars from the entry wounds where the bullets penetrated her skin had healed circularly, and the scar tissue there was thick. She didn’t want to think about how awful they would feel to him.

Eliza climbed into the tub first. The water was warm, but not too hot, the perfect temperature. He waited for her to get adjusted before he slid down behind her, pulling her flush against his chest from behind.

She sighed, relaxing into him fully. His arm reached around her shoulders, offering even more stability. Her hand tangled in his hair. She pulled him down until she could kiss his lips, taste the rain on them and slip her tongue inside his very hot mouth.

The foam from the bath water stuck to his skin. It smelled of lavender, but only slightly. Mixed with the vanilla of her skin, the sensations exploded like the perfect cake batter on his tongue.

Eliza watched the water trickle down his bicep. That stupid bicep. Every time he flexed, really flexed, she died a little inside. In a good way though. In a way that had her aroused almost instantly just at the prospect of being choked by those arms, or the way they tensed when his fingers were deep inside of her or holding her hips down as his head dove between her thighs, eating her out as if he hadn’t eaten in months.

She loved to watch his arms in the tight confines of his dress shirts, threatening to break the fabric, or when he rolled his sleeves up. There was something so beautiful yet sexually attractive about his arms and the muscles that made them, but even without flexing there was something about the way he was built that had her on her knees just thinking about it.

She kept running her hands over them long after they got out of the tub, dried off, and moved to the couch. The different colors of the billboard she had missed danced across the room. She sat with her back pressed against his chest again, a blanket draped over their warm bodies, and they lay there together, basking in the comfort of silence.

She could easily fall asleep like this.

Matt caught onto her exhaustion and started to run his fingers through her wet curls. “I’m so glad you came back,” he said.

“I’m glad you took me back,” she said.

He chuckled, “I considered not to when I heard you get out of that cab, but the things you said… no one’s ever paid this much attention to me before.”

His eyes looked sharp and steady in the empty parts of her.

“I’m sorry for all that I did to you. If I dealt with my feelings earlier, none of this would have happened.” Her hands stilled their movements, instead curling her fingers around the sleeve of his shirt. “I should have realized that I was in love with you sooner.”

“You were going through something. That doesn’t make it okay, but I understand what it’s like, and it never made me think twice about my feelings for you.”

“That’s one of the things I love about you,” she said. “Your ability to forgive people. I did terrible things…”

“Under the control of trauma,” he cut her off. “That’s not the same as acting out of your own free will, I told you that.”

“No, I… I did some things after you were gone. I completely lost myself and I don’t think eight hours of therapy managed to fix everything.”

“We can work on that.”

“It’s gonna be a lot of work.”

He shrugged. “I’m fine with that.”

“Matt, you have to understand, I…” Eliza closed her eyes. She thought about not telling him, but it wouldn’t have been fair. “I am an addict,” she said.

“I know that,” he said.

“No, I mean, I am an addict.”

She hoped he got the hint.

His eyebrows furrowed as he thought about her words. “What do you mean?”

“It means I stole a bottle of morphine after you left and took it with me.”

His grip around her shoulders tightened. Matt placed his head in the crook of her neck, eyes closed, and he exhaled hotly against her skin. “I know,” he said.

“You know?” She stammered. “What? How?”

“The marks on your arms,” his finger traced over the crook of her elbow and she instantly withdrew her arm, embarrassed about how obvious the reddened spots were from the lack of treatment, “I felt them while we were in the tub. I didn’t want to say anything because it was not my place, but I knew when I felt them. But they’re more than three days old and your heart sounds normal, so that tells me you’ve been clean since then.”

“Because Fury stole my drugs. If he hadn’t found out, I think I would still be using. I… I wouldn’t have realized what I truly felt for you. I was destroying myself,” her voice cracked and he only held on tighter, “I was purposely hurting myself and if Maria hadn’t snitched on me, I’m sure that I wouldn’t be here right now.”

Matt pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “But you are here right now, that means you want to get better,” he said.

“I do. I want to get better.”

“See? We can do this. I’m here for you, every step of the way.”

She nodded.

“I don’t see colors anymore.” Eliza exhaled shakily, looking up to prevent the inevitable from happening. “I touch you and I feel nothing. I walk around and I feel no emotions in the air except for my own. It’s just... gone.”

“What about your other powers?” he asked. “Are they gone too?”

“No,” she answered without missing a beat.

She could feel them pulsating underneath her skin, constantly reminding her of their existence, of their power and what they were capable of. The stone was sending her clear signals now. Eliza felt whole with it, like she was finally at peace with the energy she had long called a stranger.

“They’re always there, even when I don’t want them to be. I haven’t used them since… because I’m scared, but they’re there. I can feel them loud and clear. They’re a part of me now. Can’t do anything but let them in.”

His hand found its way around his throat, feeling her pulse underneath his fingers. The gesture wasn’t sexual, he was simply holding her, and she slowly calmed down.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He chuckled into her ear, “It feels so good to hear you say that.”

“Please, say it back.”

“I love you too.” His other hand stroked her arm. Goosebumps followed in the wake of his touch, spreading all over her body, but in a good way.

“Thank you.”

“When will you finally believe that I’m telling the truth when I say it?”

“When I’ve figured out what it’s like to love and be loved. Might take a while. I’m a little fucked up.”

She felt him shrug behind her. “Everyone’s a little fucked up,” he stated. “Doesn’t make you any less of a person.”

The words lay on the top of her tongue. He was seemingly the only person she could tell everything to and he would never hate her. He would never lie to her. He was the most honest person she had ever met, and he cared more about the truth than lying. It could have been the catholic in him, but she was sure that he was more than that. He had been lied to many times before, he refused to do the same to other people. That and he was taught that lying is a sin. Growing up in a catholic orphanage does a lot of things to a person.

She sucked in the air through her nose. The unshed tears still managed to stuff her nostrils with unnecessary snot, and it made her tear up again. She was vulnerable and fragile, and for the first time, she allowed herself to admit it. She was broken and needed help. She needed therapy. She needed to deal with whatever the hell was wrong with her. If not for her, she had to do it for him.

And she had to apologize to her family because she said terrible things to them too, things they didn’t deserve, even after lying to her. They swore to always protect her. By pushing away all of her feelings, she refused to let the truth get to her, and so she lashed out at them. She was too fragile, they were right. The truth tore her apart from the inside, and she only now started to feel the whole effect of it.

The pain paralyzed her.

Matt realized that she was holding back tears and he frowned. Her breathing changed, growing more erratic. “My father died,” she choked out.

“What?” he asked.

“I know I sold him out, but he was there. He was the man at the gala who caused the commotion to get us into the elevator unnoticed. He knew I’d use him as bait for Hydra, so he came prepared. He risked his life by escaping and trying to tear Hydra down from the inside while also buying me valuable time, and he sacrificed himself in the process.”

His eyes fluttered. He groaned quietly. “That’s who Natasha was talking about,” he muttered.

Eliza turned only enough to look at him. “What?”

“Natasha said something about getting help before she told us about the bombs. I was a bit caught up fighting the guys you left me with, but I heard her say something. I didn’t think much of it… God, if I had, I would have told you.”

She caressed his face. The drumming of his heart against her back told her he wasn’t lying. He taught her that. Her lips pressed to his cheek, thankful for his honesty, thankful she didn’t have to worry that he would ever keep anything from her.

He turned his head suddenly, capturing her lips once again and she chuckled at his eagerness. The first tear fell. He caught it with his finger, wiping it away.

Now that she said it, the fact that Anton was dead became reality. She could no longer deny it. He was dead, gone, and would never come back. She was an orphan now. No mother, no father, just her alone in the world. No blood relations, nothing. All because she had to pull him into a fight he didn’t sign up for. She still hated him for what he did to her, but she finally understood why he decided to give her away, and that made her hate him just a little less.

“He’s dead,” she breathed, “and I didn’t even get to tell him that there is a chance I might forgive him…”

He cradled her like a child to his chest. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

She whimpered, pressing her face into his shirt.

“Let’s have a funeral.”

Her sobs eased up. “What?”

“I strongly believe that without a funeral, the soul is just floating around somewhere, waiting to be laid to rest… you said you wanted to forgive him and I think he knows that, even in death. You don’t even have to be religious. I can get father Lantom to make it as inclusive as possible. I’ve heard him do it before. I’m sure he’d be more than willing to do it for your father too.”

“I can’t go to another parent’s funeral,” she cried.

He squeezed his eyes shut so tightly, the vein on his forehead poked out. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I know that it hurts.”

“I just can’t believe that I just found him and now he’s already dead again. I never wanted him to die. That’s the last thing I wanted.”

“I know, sweetheart. I know.”

“He died for me.”

“He made that choice, it’s not your fault.”

“I wanted to have the chance to say goodbye, at least,” she hiccuped, “because I didn’t get to say goodbye to my mom. I didn’t even get to meet her. My father… he raised me for five years, that’s better than nothing, so a part of me does love him. Knowing he’s dead is just… it makes me feel empty and angry and overall guilty.”

“Look at it this way,” Matt tilted her cheek up so she would look at him, “He loved you, or else he wouldn’t have done what he did. He always had your best interest in mind, even though he fucked up, badly. He tried to make it up to you by taking down Hydra. That has to be worth something.”

She swallowed, nodding. “It’s worth everything.”

“He loved you, Eliza. He was your father. It’s okay to be sad, to grieve, to want to bring him back just to punch him in the face for leaving you… It’s okay.”

Eliza’s eyes softened when a tear of his own trickled down his face and got caught in his beard. She stroked over it, feeling the wetness. She felt guilty for bringing it up. He went through the same thing when he was just nine years old. Her story triggered the cruel memories of the past to crawl back to the surface. And yet, he only thought of taking care of her.

“It’s okay,” she told him.

Now her eyes looked sharp and steady into the empty parts of him.

“I know it is,” he whispered, “it’s just a lot right now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize. This is your time to grieve, not mine.”

“Or we could grieve together.” She smiled.

He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess we could.”

She wiped her cheeks. Eliza made a decision. “I want the funeral,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And he’s already been cremated by a bomb, so we don’t have to worry about that.”

Matt stared blankly ahead. He wasn’t sure how to react. Was he supposed to laugh? Comfort her?

She grinned back at him. “You know, ‘cause he burned to death, so he’s already in ashes,” she repeated. “It’s supposed to be a joke.”

“Oh, my God.”

“It’s okay, you can laugh.”

“I don’t… wow!” He allowed himself to snort, which resulted in him turning his chuckle into a soft laugh. “You have the weirdest response to trauma, do you know that?” he asked.

Eliza shrugged, “A little.” She broke off into a yawn.

He kissed her temple, suggesting, “We should go to bed. It’s late and you need the rest.”

“I still have to go fix some things back at SHIELD,” she said. “They’re probably wondering where I am.”

“You can do that tomorrow. You’re too tired to leave tonight. Stay with me.” He wrapped her arms around his neck, scooping his own underneath her thighs and hoisting her up into his arms.

She yelped when he stood up without a struggle, heading for the bedroom.

“You are so strong.”

“Thanks, I work out.”

“No kidding.”

He placed her down on the mattress gently, bunching the duvet and comforter up so she could slide under it. He joined her shortly, removing most of his clothes so his skin wouldn’t rub against them as he slept. The silk was more comfortable on bare skin anyway.

She laid her cold body atop his, tangling their legs together until you could no longer tell where one started and the other ended.

Her eyes switched up to his face. The blissed-out expression on his face was too beautiful not to memorize it.

“Thank you,” she broke the silence, “for everything.”

He brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m here for you, always,” he said.

“And that’s why I love you, Matthew. I love you.”

“I love you too, bug.”

She had missed that nickname. Eliza smiled almost giddily when she placed her head over his heart. No one could hurt her now. She was home, finally, and right where she was supposed to be.

Screaming in the name of a foreigner’s God is truly the purest expression of grief.

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